I Went Back to Culinary School — Here Are 5 Things I Learned That Every Home Cook Should Know

Standing in the middle of a busy kitchen, knee-deep in soups and roasts, restaurant orders flying in and flavors zooming around in my head, is one of my favorite feelings in the world. Back in the day, when I worked as a cook in fine-dining restaurants in Los Angeles, suiting up and cooking for hours on end gave me an exhilarating adrenaline rush that I’ve been chasing ever since.

I don’t cook professionally anymore, but I’m still in the food world. I run the company I founded, Hedley & Bennett. We make functional kitchen gear for some of the best restaurants in the country and outfit home cooks, too. (If you ever see an ampersand patch on the chest of an apron, it’s us!)

I’m also in a different season in my life. I’m now 38 years old. Hedley & Bennett is 13. I am a mom to two little boys and have a pet pig named Oliver, one chicken who goes by the name Olive Oil, and a magical husband I like to call “bean,” short for sea bean, the edible succulent.

Last year, despite everything I had on my plate, I started attending the Institute of Culinary Education in Pasadena, California. The decision was one part experiment, one part madcap leap into the unknown. What would happen if I immersed myself as a student to restudy what I’d already done before and strengthen my chops? Would it give me the same thrill I felt when I was a chef way back when? Would I get new insights on the world of food I’d been in for over a decade now but from a different perspective? Would it evolve my view on how my company outfits chefs? There were so many what ifs, but I love an adventure, so in I dove.

What going back to culinary school taught me

And here’s the beautiful thing about this funny leap of faith I took: Even though I didn’t know exactly what would happen, it worked. 

I found the euphoria I’d been seeking in the pressure of the clock ticking, in the practice of making meringues over and over till they were perfect, even in putting everything away and scrubbing the entire kitchen down. But more than that, putting myself back in the classroom filled me with fresh inspiration and curiosity that has spilled into my life every day. I find myself regularly saying, “Yes, I can do that,” “I’m gonna learn how to do that,” and “I don’t know how to do that, but let me figure it out.” Then the next thing I know, I’m a focaccia fanatic, I’m making compound butters like it’s my calling, and I’m whipping up aioli for every meal. Best of all? I get to take all this back to my dinner table to share with my family, to share with my team at Hedley & Bennett — and here and now, to share with you. 

By no means has this journey been easy, but it has been deeply rewarding. What is life about anyway, if not thrusting into the next adventure and challenge, to learn and to expand your worldview?

Lesson 1: Use your freezer to make weeknight cooking easier

Prepping ahead in decent volume and using the freezer to store it all gives you a big leg up on your next meal. I love the fact that I can buy things in bulk like chicken, butter, bread, and tortillas (looking at you, Costco) and store them away in serving-size portions, or freeze smaller cuts of proteins so I can pull out what I need for dinner the day before.

Case in point: compound butter. I love to make it and have it ready to go. It’s an easy way to take an everyday hanger steak and make it glorious. Just sear that beef, season it with salt and pepper, and throw a small slab of compound butter with rosemary, garlic, and all the bits in there right on top. You just upped your hanger steak game by a lot and made yourself look way fancier with very little effort.

Because I don’t always have time to make compound butter from scratch, I’ll make a decent-size batch, use what I need for dinner, and then freeze the rest.

Shallot-Herb Compound Butter

40 mins

Lesson 2: Anyone can become a better baker

Common wisdom holds that there are two types of cooks in this world, bakers and savory cooks, and I had always considered myself the latter. Not because I don’t love a cinnamon roll, but because I didn’t understand the pastry world at all. There’s no way I can do it, I’d tell myself. All that measuring — who can be bothered?

Cut to me showing up to baking classes and being willing to listen a little harder. Turns out, anyone can bake, including me. The key was to shift my perspective. It started with fostering an openness to learn versus saying, “No, I couldn’t possibly take the time for this,” then buying a proper kitchen scale to weigh out ingredients and learning to be precise. 

Day by day, I went from operating as a grandma-style cook (not following instructions) to actually measuring things on a scale. I started slowing down and taking a breath, buying the good flour, and following the damn instructions.

So pick something you’d love to learn to bake, and practice it. This focaccia has been a journey for me — I’ve made so many, I had to start giving them away to my neighbors — but the end result is this crusty magic that bounces between my fingers. It’s great, but only for about a day and a half max, so make it and plan to eat it all.

Same-Day Garden Focaccia

Lesson 3: Following a recipe makes you a better cook

As someone who loves to fly by the seat of their pants both in cooking and in life, I found an unexpected gift in the consistency of my culinary school schedule compared to the ever-changing craziness of my usual one. Combined with the structure offered by recipes that I had to practice over and over and over again, something magical happened. I wasn’t just cooking with my senses and rushing through a recipe as I usually would at home. The steady drumbeat of culinary school allowed me to slow down enough to follow each recipe, and, once I perfected it, to explore, experiment, and evolve it from there. (This was a big deal for my inner grandma, who seemed to think everything should be a pinch of this and a skosh of that.) 

I have probably made this risotto more times than any other dish. I wanted a creamy cacio e pepe risotto with a hit of lemon that would knock my socks off every time. The first time I made it, it was too acidic. The second time, too thick. Each version would get better in one way but worse in another, but I kept tweaking, adjusting, and dialing it in to get it just right. I took notes, and I asked people to try it. I brought it to potlucks and friends’ houses. I came out the other side with a dish I love, and I learned a ton about risotto in the process. 

For instance, risotto should be served immediately, and it’s always going to need more stock than you think. Have a separate pot going with your stock so you never add cold stock as you’re making your risotto. (Cold stock stalls the cooking process and stops the release of starch, so you can end up with semicooked rice that’s also a bit mushy; not something you want!) And when you think you’ve added enough Parmesan, add more — risotto can hold more cheese than you could possibly imagine.

Once you’ve got the basic recipe down, it’s your back-pocket dinner ace. Risotto is basically fancy kid pasta, so there are a few paths to take to vibe it up.

Lemon-Parmesan Risotto

1 hr 10 mins

Lesson 4: Breaking down a whole chicken is worth the effort

Learning how to break down a chicken is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself. Plus, buying chickens whole rather than precut into parts saves you money and time, and the amount of stuff you can make out of a single bird makes it well worth the effort. I like to use the whole broken-down bird to make both broth and a chicken tinga tostada dinner for four. 

Breaking down a chicken over and over again and knowing where the joints are so that you’re working with the bird instead of against it is oddly gratifying. It becomes a joy instead of an avoided task. Don’t sweat it — if you mess up a cut, no one will know. Use a sharp boning knife (a longer knife that has some give). Use a baking sheet to hold the chicken parts as you break it down. If the whole process feels gross, use black barbecue gloves — they will help you hold the chicken better, anyway. 

How to break down a whole chicken, step by step

1. Cut the leg skin

Gently pull one leg away from the torso; while holding it out, slice through the skin that connects the leg to the body so the chicken can lie flatter.

2. Pop the joints

Flip the chicken over, breast side down. Grab both legs, and pull them up toward the center of the bird until you feel the joints pop free.

3. Separate the leg

Slice through the skin and joint on the opposite side of the original incision, allowing the leg quarter to separate cleanly from the rest of the chicken.

4. Separate the other leg

Repeat step 3 on the other side of the chicken, gently pulling the leg as you cut to help guide your knife to the right spot. Flip the chicken over, breast side up, after removing both legs.

5. Remove the breasts

Feel for the hard bone between the breasts. Place your knife along that bone, and carefully cut the breasts away from the torso. Separate the tenders from the undersides of the breasts.

6. Detach the wings

The wings will still be attached to the breasts at this point. Locate the bone that leads to the wing, then cut away from the breast to separate the two pieces. Repeat on the other side of the chicken.

Lesson 5: A simple sauce can transform dinner

Where there’s a protein, there should be a sauce — it’s the move that takes a meal from good to over-the-top-great. In school, I learned there are five types of core sauces (known as the mother sauces): béchamel, espagnole, hollandaise, velouté, and sauce tomate. But for the purpose of being a boss with your weeknight dinners, your sauce doesn’t have to fit into one of those boxes. In fact, aioli — which you can make on the fly — can step in as a sauce, and it steps up everything.

Aioli is essentially a fancy mayonnaise with garlic that you can add fresh herbs into. It adds another layer to your meal. Good vibes and also delish: double win. You want creamy beans? Aioli on top is a winner. A delicious BLT? Aioli again. Build it, and they will come.

Double Garlic Aioli

1 hr 35 mins