Are You an ART Pastry Chef or an ACF Pastry Chef?

January 24, 2011 at 1:50 am (Uncategorized) (, , , , )

Are you in it for the art or for the power? 

Do you long to be president of the local ACF chapter, or do you long to be on the cover of Pastry Art & Design?

You’ll want to know your own reason for wanting to be a pastry chef, and you’ll want to know how your bosses feel about the issue.

I wouldn’t put it in those terms, of course, but most chefs have an opinion on ACF or not ACF. The ACF-centric chefs will be active, displaying W.P.C. or E.P.C. or the like after their names. The real big-wigs will be officers, past or present, and you can look them up on the local ACF web site. So if you hear about a job, try to find intel on the pastry chef or the executive chef, depending on the job.

If they ask you about ACF membership, it’s a hint.

Then you will want to decide if that’s the right place for you, one way or the other.

You’re going to be a square peg in a round hole if you’re mis-matched on this.

Not to say that ACF-centric chefs aren’t good. Many of them are true artists, but it’s not just about the art. It’s about politics, networking, the good ol’ boy club, status, prestige, and getting a table when the restaurant is fully booked.

On the other hand, or arm, are the  “Art” pastry chefs who are combining flavors and textures in ways that defy reason, but work, and are plating things in impossibly innovative ways. Most of these people, it seems, sport a tatoo or two. Often entire sleeves. And that’s just what you can see.

They are plating their own bodies.

Not for consumption, of course, but for art.

For art.

 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/03/110103fa_fact_gopnik

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