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 This month, to coincide with the monthly jobs report, we talked to
the celebrity chefs who have taken over our airwaves. Before they
started creating gourmet meals, they began at the bottom just like
the rest of us.
Bobby Flay
First job: salad chef
"After getting kicked out of high school once, I finally dropped out
as a sophomore. My dad said, 'If you're not going to school, you
have to get a job.' He wasn't asking, he was telling.
"He was a partner in a Broadway-district restaurant called Joe
Allen, and I filled in as a busboy for two weeks. I was literally
walking out of the restaurant when the chef said to me, 'Do you want
a job in the kitchen?' I said 'OK, sure.'
"So I put on my cook's whites and started working at the salad
station. One day I woke up and thought, 'I can't wait to go to work
today.' I knew something was different.
"I was paid $190 a week. I remember opening my first paycheck and
being shocked at the amount of taxes they took out: $46. It was
criminal. But this was around 1981, and with $144, I felt like I
could do anything I wanted. I could buy all the beer I could
possibly drink."
Thomas Keller
First job: dishwasher
"I started out washing dishes, which turned out to have a huge
impact on my life and career. This was at a restaurant in Laurel,
Maryland called the Bay & Surf, which was run by my mother. The
dishwashing station was next to where they cooked crabs, so
sometimes I got to help the chefs.
"I think my brother and I got paid a little something, but we were
far too young to be on the payroll - I was only in 6th or 7th grade.
"As a dishwasher I may have been considered the lowest person in
that restaurant, but I learned that I was just as important as
anybody else. If I didn't do my part, then nobody else could do
their jobs."
Emeril Lagasse
First job: bakery assistant
"I worked at the Moonlight bakery on Bedford Street in Fall River,
Massachusetts. I used to go there with my parents, and one of the
owners took a liking to me and gave me a job a few days a week after
school. It was mainly washing pots and pans, and I made a dollar an
hour.
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"I was infatuated with baking: the smells, the bins, the flour and
sugar and eggs. Not a lot of guys there spoke English; these were
hardcore Portuguese bakers. But I guess they liked me, because I
started going on deliveries, and eventually they taught me how to
bake.
"By the time I was 14 I would work in that bakery from 11 at night
until 7 in the morning, and then go to school all day. I would sleep
after school, my parents would wake me up for dinner, and then I'd
go back to the bakery to start all over again."
Michael Chiarello
First job: dishwasher
"If you ask chefs of my generation, probably at least half of us
started out as dishwashers. I grew up in a small farm town in
California's Central Valley, and there weren't many restaurants
around, but I walked right into one of them when I was 14 and asked
for a job.
"Once the dishes were done, there was nothing to do, so at some
point the cook asks you to help out. That was the goal, since I
always wanted to be a cook.
"I made less than minimum wage, and spent the money on fishing and
hunting gear, since I was a country boy. Eventually I put myself
through chef's school by raising litters of golden retrievers.
"Dishwashing is actually one of the most respected positions around.
It's the heart of the kitchen, because as that area goes, so goes
the rest of the restaurant."
(Follow us @ReutersMoney or at http://www.reuters.com/finance/personal-finance;
Editing by Beth Pinsker and Jonathan Oatis)
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