By Adam Weiner

Says Chef Weiner, even in short classes, instructors must stop doing the mise en place themselves unless they plan on accompanying students to their first jobs.

There are five “P”s of professional cooking: Planning, Preparation, Presentation, Passion and Pride. Presentation and planning have appeared in past “50-Minute Classrooms.” Now, preparation.

I tell students that preparation (aka MISE EN PLACE) is everything. I start with an example of changing the oil in a car. You don't get under the car, climb out and get a wrench, climb back under and then climb out and go to the store to buy a filter, etc. You first get everything next to the car.

By Adam Weiner

Letting students fail a few times before showing them the tricks of the trade will make them more receptive.

I teach my students that there are five Ps to professional cooking: Planning, Preparation, Presentation, Passion and Pride. Last year in the January/February issue I wrote about presentation, so I am a bit out of order on how to teach planning.

By Adam Weiner, JobTrain and the Sequoia Adult School

To help the student who’s prepping for an interview, share this compendium of need-to-knows.

One of our key responsibilities as instructors is to make sure that our students can do well in interviews. If they cannot give a good interview, they can’t get a job. I repeatedly work on teaching soft skills to my students on how to interview. I will write about that in the next issue of The Gold Medal Classroom.

Below is a culinary cheat sheet that I give to my students to study before every interview. Now, it probably isn’t useful to just copy it as is, but it might be useful to you to modify it for your students.

Convenience products—a reality in today’s kitchens—are actually platforms from which to create signature dishes.

By Adam Weiner

For economic reasons, there are very few kitchens in the country that cook almost everything from scratch. Mixes, precooked items, packages and containers can be found in even the best kitchens. The problem with many young cooks is that they just open up the packages and cans, dump them into a pot or hotel pan, heat them, and slop them on a plate. They lose the passion for their craft. They become disillusioned and bitter, hating and then quitting their jobs.

These young cooks have not been taught that these products are not the “be all” and “end all” of their cooking. No one has taught them that convenience products are a canvas waiting to be painted with their own culinary style.