Yet Another Very Bad Idea

[evilhippo]

So, I made bagels tonight, while bouncing around my kitchen singing along with Akron/Family, because I was out of breakfast food. They actually turned out orders of magnitude better than my last batch. I think it's because I actually kneaded them for the full 10 minutes (usually I get a few minutes in, go "I don't remember when I started, and this... looks like dough to me" and then move on). My only problem with them is that I'm here all alone and no one in Hyde Park wants to come over and my roommate won't get back until after I go to bed, so I have no one to share them with. There are just six bagels sitting alone on my stovetop, being cheddar or furikkake or plain and kind of lonely.

Somehow, this has spurred me along the following line of thought: Maybe I should go to culinary school, and then open up a café. I don't mind getting up in the morning these days, and baking seems to be my default way of passing free time. This overlooks the whole I'm Not A Great Cook thing, but that's what culinary school is for, right? (Do they have remedial culinary school, that works up from whatever the class after Macaroni and Cheese from a Box would be?) I think Hyde Park is well set for a proper indie café that isn't on campus. One that... isn't one of the other three I've suddenly remembered. Okay... Kenwood is well set for a proper indie café (and none of that c-a-f-e-apostrophe crap I see on signs. I want a real accent on that e).

But anyway... the point. Is going to culinary school really such a bad idea? I'd be studying something again. Even if I don't become a chef, knowing how to cook is freaking useful, which is far over and above the utility I'd get from having my MFA (unless Artistic Credibility Dollars become legal tender. I'll have to drop by Obama's house and see what I can negotiate), without the risk of killing my writing motivation all over again. I could pretend that I was a mad scientist while I measured things out in the kitchen. And I bet culinary students are fun to watch. I wonder if there are any non-BS, inexpensive culinary schools to be found...

Comments

[windresistant.livejournal.com]

I know that the art institutes have a culinary sector, but how good it is I have no idea. Anyhow, you don't really need to go to school if you don't want to. My step-sister has a degree in anthropology, and she is a professional cake baker now. She started out in this bakery as the shitty person who wasn't allowed to ice birthday cakes, let alone decorate the really fancy ones. Now she is really good at it! I've seen pictures. It looks fun.

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've always wished I could do something like that. But unfortunately I can't take a crappy job and work my way up, because the entry-level job would never pay me enough to live on. Mostly because of my stupid student loans. I wish someone would figure out how to make college actually, you know... fit, with the job world for people like me who are dumb and major in liberal arts fields and thus can't do anything with their degrees.