For Chefs and people who think they want to be Chefs, this series is a personal journey & reflection of what experiences we go through.

Part 1: A German and a Black Kid Walk into a Kitchen

Part 2: Culinary School-To Go or Not to Go

Part 3: How Not to Get Burnt Out In the Kitchen

Part 4: Kitchen Tales and Fails :Don’t Sleep With The Waitstaff

Part 5: You’re Not As Good As You Think You Are

Part 6: Chef / Always and Forever

Part 7: Its About Them Not Us

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Chef

A Kitchen Safari

Part 1: A German and a Black Kid Walk into a Kitchen

I became interested in Culinary Arts by happenstance. In grade school I was a horrible student, I tested high but never did class work or homework. It went a little something like this, 98 test average, 55 homework average, and a 70 class work average. That equaled a D+. My problem in school was being too talkative and too energetic, at a time when most parents weren’t concerned about ADD and ADHD. “Hell” , it may not have even been a “thing” then. I had the attention span of a gnat if I wasn’t being visually and intellectually stimulated at the same time. When it came time to go into the 11th grade a guidance counselor thought it best if I picked up a trade. Mechanic, cosmetology, or culinary arts were my choices. The way he couched these options was as if I had no choice but to choose one of these, I remember thinking. Obviously I wasn’t going to college he must have thought, so let’s bus the kids with no college future across town to a vocational school.

I don’t know if that was a dick move or not, but um, “thank you, regardless”

What better place for a kid that loves working with his hands, talks constantly, has plenty of energy, a high IQ, and is artistic, than a kitchen? When I was a young teen, my mother and I would sit and watch Great Chefs of America and Best Bed and Breakfast Inns and daydream about living in Vermont and cooking extravagant dishes. We were poor with big dreams.

At 16, I went into the culinary vocational program really eager to learn. I remember my mother telling me “well, if you learn to cook you will always have a job because people will always eat.” At that time it made perfect sense to us both, and still does. I was very fortunate to have a culinary instructor by the name of Robert (Bob) Bierschmidt. A German man with dark gray teeth that smelled like Marlboro cigarettes. He had grown tired of working in hotels, the infamous Line, restaurants with no benefits, and wanted to give something back. Bob was a skinny man with a very deep baritone voice, and quite feminine with his body posturing at times. He had a nervous twitch from which he claims came from 2 decades of working under brutal stress and asshole restaurant owners. Bob was shell shocked and over it. What he encountered in us was a class full of misfits sprinkled with a few students who genuinely cared and would eventually care about him.

Chef Bierschmidt and I had an interesting relationship. I was a cocky and competitive kid. I was MVP of the track team, and played football for the high school but daily he would find ways to humble me, calm me down, criticize me, and make me better. We warred half of the time. He hated that I always raised my hand to answer questions, sometimes even as I had my head down. He knew I did it for attention not because I was passionate, though I was. He would stick me with the “slower” students and make us compete with classmate teams making Rice Pilaf, muffins, and using a Chef’s Knife. On days I was really out of hand, playing grab ass in the pantry, he made me alphabetize it. Lets just say, I’m really good at my ABC’s.

During our second year in the program Chef Bierschmidt even allowed a few of us to join VICA and CCAP to enter into culinary competitions. He would rent vans and take us into the city to compete and eagerly watch over us. I remember looking out of the window with my classmates as some of us had never seen tall buildings before being from a rural place like Suffolk, Virginia. I can still smell the smoke on his breath as he would whisper to me, “Remember your knife cuts Brandon, tuck your fingers, no brown on the omelet, just like we practiced.” Or he would walk around the room and spy on the other kids and walk over to our team and say “O, you guys got this, remember, mise en place”, then retreat to a corner as to not make us nervous. He loved us. I knew it because I felt it. I actually won a few of those competitions and received a couple of small scholarships from them.

The Pruden Center was a two year program, and at the end of my time in the program there was an award ceremony for Student of the Year. Everyone knew I would get that award. I was the most devoted, I had the second highest class test average, the highest lab average, and had won a scholarship to Johnson and Wales University. Chef Bierschmidt walked up to the podium and gave a tearful congratulations to his class for completing it. He had privately expressed doubt about half of the class passing at all, so he was very proud when we all made it through. This was his first teaching experience and it meant a lot to him. He said “Student of the Year goes to, Lisa Tann”, as he looked dead at me. I felt like he punched me in the chest, and he knew he had. There was a gasp in the audience and some students heckling with “oooooo’s”.

It Broke. My. Heart.

When we got back to the class to say our final goodbyes, he called me into his office. He said “do you know why Lisa won?” I replied, “because I got a 90 on that one test when I came to class drunk and Lisa got a 97?” (Yea that happened, thanks to a friend who said drinking Mad Dog 20/20 at 7am on an empty stomach won’t make you sick) He said “no, it’s because you needed to be humbled, you have a lot of promise Brandon and if you stop needing to be everyone’s friend you can go far in this industry”. I’ll never forget that. I’ll never forget him. Chef Robert Bierschmidt is the reason why I still tuck my fingers and scoff at omelets with any brown on them. He is the reason, I still cook.

There are certain personality traits that must be a part of you if you want to be a Chef. Cooking is a unique art because it requires math, artisanship, discipline, effort, and creativity at the same time. It is the Davinci Code for those of us who need a way to combine our talents into something that gives us purpose. I was fortunate to have some guidance early on. I had an instructor who cared and helped me not let myself get in my own way. Chefs are emotional people and emotional people need a yoke sometimes.

A month after I graduated from the program and high school, I left for Basic Training with the National Guard. When I came back I accepted my scholarship to Johnson and Wales University to major in Culinary Arts. Lisa Tann also went to Johnson and Wales and every day I had the pleasure of destroying her in the kitchen (shameless I know).

A few years later, I went back to my old vocational school to tell Mr. Bierschmidt thank you. I walked up to the front desk and the same secretary was still there. I said do you remember me, she said “yes of course.” She said, “it’s good to see you, what are you here for?” I said, “I’m here to surprise Mr. Bierschmidt and tell him thank you for everything.” I could see a cold chill come over her face as her jaw clinched. She looked down, then up, then down. She said “I’m sorry Brandon but Bob died a year ago from lung cancer.” To this day, not being able to say thank you to Bob causes a boulder and burn in my throat. I don’t have some magical story about why I became a Chef.

It’s simple, A Chef was the first person to believe in me and I cook to never let him down.

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Up Next: Part 2: Culinary School-To Go or Not to Go