"For anyone in the food service business, or even thinking about it, this is a must have guide." - Tim Zagat
Cooking, baking, managing, producing, distilling, brewing, distributing, marketing, writing, photographing, filming, styling — the career opportunities in the food industry today are seemingly endless. Culinary Careers: How to Get Your Dream Job in Food (Clarkson Potter, May 2010) offers candid portraits of dozens of coveted jobs at all levels of the culinary arts and hospitality industry by interviewing actual people who hold those jobs. There’s no better book to help you identify your culinary career options.
With so many career paths possible, it can be dauting to parse out what job is for you, or how to go about obtaining it. In Culinary Careers, ICE CEO and Chairman Rick Smilow and co-author Anne E. McBride talked to people in all aspects of the industry about their education, career path and day-to-day activities to help people at all stages of their culinary career garner insight into what their next step should be. In this book, readers will:
- Get the ultimate in advice from those at the very pinnacle of the industry, including Thomas Keller, Daniel Boulud, Lidia Bastianich, David Chang and Ruth Reichl; as well a those on their way up.
- Read about the inspiring — and sometimes unconventional — paths individuals took to reach their current positions in 89 in-depth profiles.
- Get insight into dozens of culinary career paths, some of which you may have never heard of!
- Learn what a food stylist’s day on the set of a major motion picture is like, how a top New York City restaurant publicity firm got off the ground, what to look for in a yacht crew before jumping on board as the chef and so much more.
- Find out what employers look for, and how you can put your best foot forward in interviews.
Culinary Careers covers topics such as whether you’ll need to attend culinary school, how to choose a culinary school, how to write a resume and interview for a job in this industry, how to advance once you’ve started, what it truly looks like to be a culinary entrepreneur and much more.
The 89 interviews include chefs such as Thomas Keller (California, New York, Las Vegas), Daniel Boulud (New York, Palm Beach, Las Vegas, Vancouver, China), Dan Barber, David Chang (New York), Rick Bayless, Graham Elliot Bowles (Chicago), Joseph Wrede (Taos, New Mexico), and Kelly Liken (Vail, Colorado); pastry chefs such as Gale Gand (Chicago), François Payard (New York, Las Vegas, Brazil), Mindy Segal (Chicago), Erin McKenna (New York, Los Angeles), Michael Laiskonis (New York), and cake designer Elisa Strauss (New York); people from the media world such as Ruth Reichl (author, former editor-in-chief of Gourmet), Michael Ruhlman (author), Gail Simmons (Top Chef ), Molly Wizenberg (the blog Orangette, Bon Appétit), and Susan Spungen (food stylist, former food editor, Martha Stewart Living); food artisans such as Zingerman’s Ari Weinzweig, Chef’s Garden Lee Jones, Allagash Brewing Company’s Rob Tod, and Savannah Bee Company’s Ted Dennard; as well as sommeliers, caterers, company owners, media producers, stylists, photographers, publicists, consultants, educators, and more.
Culinary Careers is available for sale at bookstores nationwide, online at amazon.com, and at ICE.
About the authors:
Rick Smilow is CEO and Chairman of the Institute of Culinary Education. During his tenure, ICE has grown to become one of the nation’s leading culinary education centers, winning coveted awards and producing some of the industry’s top talent. Smilow has an MBA from the Kellogg School and is also a director of Daniel Boulud’s Dinex Restaurant Group and a board member of City Harvest and Careers through Culinary Arts Program.
Anne E. McBride, PhD is a food writer and editor and currently serves as Vice President of Programs at the James Beard Foundation and as an adjunct professor at NYU’s Food Studies program. Previous books include chef François Payard’s Chocolate Epiphany (Clarkson Potter, 2008) and Bite Size (William Morrow, 2006). Previously McBride was a senior cookbook editor at Hippocrene Books and has sat on the board of such culinary societies as the New York Women’s Culinary Alliance and The Association for the Study of Food and Society.
The Institute of Culinary Education is accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC), which is a recognized accrediting agency by the U.S. Department of Education.
