Quest Time Chef at SJHS!

On October 27 chef Ms. Hunter came to SJHS during Quest Time as part of Windows to the Workplace, to teach students about being a chef. Ms. Hunter works for New Skin, at The Spoon, as the executive chef. She had a powerpoint to show the students things about being a chef, and explained what it was like for her to be a chef. Ms. Hunter became a chef shortly after she got a divorce. Her grandma was the one to encourage her to pursue her dreams.

Quincy Smart, a seventh grader, said she learned “it's not an easy as it looks.” There are three ways to become a chef. One is you move up through the ranks starting at the bottom, and eventually working your way up to a chef position. Two is you go to a culinary school and earn a degree as a chef; it takes about two to four years to get a degree for a chef. Three is a traditional apprenticeship where you do some school and you do some hands on work to become a chef. There are lots of different types of chefs. There is the executive chef, the sous-chef and many others; those two are the most important chefs in the kitchen and the ones in charge.

Chefs make money depending on their rank, and even the highest the ranking chefs do not make a lot of money; an executive chef (the person in charge of a kitchen) earns a median salary of $67,995; while a sous chef (the person who reports to the executive chef) earns a median salary of $42,501. Angela Lopez, a seventh grader, said she learned “that when you work as a chef, you don’t work for the money, you work for the love.”