french culinary institute tour

i visited the french culinary institute this afternoon after a half-day of classes at columbia ... having slept only 3 hours a day for the last 4 days, i woke up this morning and thought i saw a panda in the mirror ... in the last 30 years of my life, i've had the luck of never growing eye-bags regardless how much i worked, how little i slept or how much i partied ... my biological age is catching up and i'm beginning to feel it the pain of last nights crazy party at juliet (pictures to come soon, hopefully someone has them out there) ...

the french culinary institute is located near nyc china town, a quaint and bustling area of town ... the student run restaurant on the first floor, l'ecole, was vibrant tho not packed as it was only 3pm in the afternoon ... i got into the elevator and went up to the fourth floor and met with john davis, associate director ... a man in his forties, his heavy-set character made him look part like a has-been chef and his well-spoken insights made him look part like a salesman as he began asking me questions about my experiences and what program i was looking for ... so not to bore this blog, i went into a 5 min spiel about my consulting, entrepreneurial, davita, and now business school experience at which point he immediately directed me to the classic culinary arts program ... wow, how convenient, priced at $40K!!! ... shiet! ...

so after a quick overview of the program, john toured me through the school going through each of the 6 kitchen classroom teaching the 6 levels of culinary arts (pictures to come) ... while the school itself wasn't large, i very impressed with the layout and the classroom environment ... as we passed by the amphitheater where a nutrion class was taking place, the smell of duck breast was overwhelmingly savory ... i was ready to start class! ...

so the tour only lasted an hour ... while i think i know what program i would be interested in, i think this tour has raised more questions, e.g.,

- dormitory: where, how much, and what's the quality of the dormitory? i've gotten accustomed to a decent quality of life and the thought of going back to a dormitory may sound exciting at first, but really, can be devastating!
- financing: $40K, holy shit! ... now that's expensive for a 6 month program! ... i thought only my emba at $50K / half year was expensive, i never thought culinary school would be this expensive ... how am i going to fund this? ... how much is it going to set me back and how much is financing? ...
- work: how can i make this happen? ... i still owe 4 years with davita ... how can i fit this into my work schedule? ... will davita let me relocate to NYC for a year? ... can i take a 6 month sabatical? ... this is more logistically difficult than i thought ...

john's tour ended in l'ecole's kitchen where he showed me the graduation picture of bobby flay in 1984, the first entry class ... i'm overall thrilled about the program; however, think this is going to take more planning and saving ... i'll need to rethink my plans and budgets for 2010 ... while i'm a little overwhelmed at the moment with the cost and time commitment, i'm beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel and am feeling excited about this ...

making a commitment ...

"capital efficiency blah blah blah ... balanced scorecard at GE blah blah blah ..." i'm sitting in FP&A class at columbia and can't help but slouch, hidden away from prof. Toshi's view in attempt to act busy ... i'm not prepared to discuss the case work on server vault ... "can we hear from someone who hasn't spoken yet? who hasn't spoken yet, please raise your hand ..." (acting too busy to raise my hand ... avoid eye contact at all cost) ... as a matter of fact, raghu completed the case for the team and i hadn't even taken the 5 mins to read his write-up in preparation for class ... at what point in the last 5 months of my mba life had i taken on this slack attitude, i don't know ... so, what better time to day-dream again about culinary adventures and really put a stake in the ground on my goal to becoming a successful hospitality entrepreneur ... really, i'm gonna get there someday ...

what do you do when you really don't know how to achieve your goal? ... i'm really not sure, but i know it certainly isn't just day-dreaming ... so, to take advantage of being here in nyc this week, i'm going to go visit french culinary institute this saturday after class and try out one of Danny Meyer's restaurant as i just recently purchased his audio book "Setting the Table" ... ok, i don't really have time to read these days so have gotten obsessed with audio books ... being able to "read" when your driving, traveling through airports, on airplanes with eyes closed is just awesome! ... lazy geek!!

why am i blog'n again? ...

i never grew up liking food ... i was always the malnourished boy in the family as a matter of fact, my sister and i have always been the shortest kids in class every year and every school we've attended ... as far as i can remember, at dinner each night, sitting at the mahogany dinner table dreading what my mother would serve, i'd stare at the timeless clock, wondering how many hours i'd have to sit here before my mother got fed up yelling "finish your rice!" and release me from the dinner table ... it was a war zone and 7pm was when the guerrillas came out ... when my mother yelled, "dinner's served" i'd put up my game face, the agonizing face as if i'd just had a terrible case of food poisoning ... it never worked on my mother ... as i grew older, i grew bolder ... in sixth grade, one evening, after coming home from school, my mother served my sister and i curry for dinner ... my sister and i loved her curry, but we never ate much of it ... unable to finish my dinner, i told my mother, "this curry sucks" ... i found myself on my knees with my face locked up against the wall and my mother screaming behind my back telling me she'd let me starve and die young ... paralyzed by fear, i knelt there next to the wall for four hours until my mother had gone to sleep ... i snuck back to my room, unfolded my swiss army knife and decided i was going to teach mother a lesson by commiting suicide ... the pocket knife never got pass a paper cut ...

that's not to say my mother isn't a great cook ... as a matter of fact, she's one of the best cooks i know ... years of fighting to nourish my sister and i, my mother's perfected the art of cooking ... ever since i invited my first grade friend, Karl, over to my house, i've received non-stop jealous praises about how lucky i was that my mom made restaurant-quality food while his mom fed him cold, rubber chicken at home ... ... that was my early experience with food ...

this blog is about anything that "fills me belly" ... literally, psychologically, emotionally, physically, spiritually, professionally ... whatever ... why? ... first, i've recently (or last ten years) have grown to be quite obsessed with the idea of food ... not that i'm a big foodie or that i can whip up a Manchu Han Imperial Feast ... you name it, in a city like LA, there's probably more than a thousand burger joints making over a million types of burgers ... you turn on the tv and there seems to be an endless production of new reality chef shows ... we've grown into a society that revolves around eating ... second, sitting in my office cubicle staring into infinitesimal of nothingness i've developed quite the talent to day-dream ... hopefully, through this site, i can explore the adventures of my day-dreams and attempt to document them in some orderly fashion ...

[writer's block ... 1 week later ...]

ok, really made no progress on this entry, so time to post and move on ...