If your a hobbyist and cooking is one of them, there are things that you have to consider before you decide to become a chef. Cooking as a hobby is totally different from Cooking as a profession!
Let me give you a little picture of how it is in a professional kitchen:
1. You work on 8 hour shifts. 99% of the time you are standing.
2. When you cook at home, once you're done, you're done. The next meal you prepare might be for the next day, week or even month. When you cook in a professional kitchen, cooking does not stop. After cooking lunch, you prepare for dinner...and so on.
3. Most kitchens are very HOT! Even if airconditioned, you feel like your in an oven!
4. 90% of the time, your hands are wet.
5. The floors are always slippery
6. Everything has to be done FAST! Chopping a whole onion should only take 15 seconds and should have no bits of skin or fingernails included
If I had to write everything, hahay...might take a whole page...but I think you get the picture...
I'm not to discourage those who are interested...but I would like to show you lang what the work of chef's really are. Most of us see chefs on TV man gud and they look so COOL! But come to think of it, they are only cooking for 1 person in the demo! In a restaurant..you cook for HUNDREDS! Most of the ingredients are already prepared for them! Some are even pre cooked already!
For those of you who want to be a CHEF, make sure you really want to be.
If your a hobbyist, I'd suggest go to Caro n Marie, Home Bakers and the like because you get to see techniques and recipes. But if you really want to be a chef, go to a Culinary School not because you'll learn much there, but because a school has contacts with different establishments where you can best HONE your skills! Cooking is about practice...the more you do it, the better you get