Chef Kirk Bachmann: Culinary Schools, Industry Evolution, and the Legacy of Auguste Escoffier

Could culinary schools be the answer to the ever-growing demand for skilled talent in today's food industry? Join us on this episode of Walk-In Talk as we chat with Chef Kirk Bachman, President and Provost of Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts, to uncover the crucial role culinary education plays in shaping the next generation of chefs. We also revisit last week's inspiring conversation with Chef Thom Favorin from Crab Island Seafood Company, and don't miss our exclusive updates from the Bocuse d'Or competition in New Orleans, where Chef Pooch Rivera interviews top culinary talents.

In this episode, we traverse the milestones of culinary careers through personal stories and professional insights. From the highs of the Bocuse d'Or to the heartfelt moments of coaching Little League baseball, Kirk shares a journey as the son of a master baker in Germany, emphasizing the timeless importance of education, perseverance, and customer service. We discuss the changing landscape of culinary education, focusing on the adaptability and problem-solving skills essential for today's students, while also touching on the rise of online culinary programs.

Don't forget to follow the school: www.escoffier.edu and check out Chef Kirk's podcast, The Ultimate Dish, for more culinary inspiration! 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:04

Hello Food Fam. This is the Walk Talk podcast where you will find the perfect blend of food fun and cooking knowledge. I'm your host, carl Fiodini. Welcome to the number one food podcast in the country. We're recording on site at Ibis Images Studios, where food photography comes alive and I get to eat it, oh yeah. So first things first. Last week on the show we had chef and CEO Tom Favren. He's in charge over at Crab Island Seafood Company and we enjoyed a sampling of their high-quality dips and spreads. Oh wow, so good. Our convo was about the challenges of starting a business and staying determined. You can do it, you can win. Go back and listen Today.

Speaker 1: 1:53

You people out there, you ever think about going to culinary school. I believe that this is the time to take advantage of never-ending staffing challenges, higher pay and advancement opportunities that are really out there. The food industry needs talent now more than ever before. Let's get into why culinary schools and the industry needs each other. This industry of ours is changing and I think it's changing for the better.

Speaker 1: 2:18

Our guest this week is President and Provost of Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Chef. Kirk Bachman is on deck. Stay tuned and, by the way, you should check out his podcast, the Ultimate Dish. I don't usually put out other podcasts, but I got to tell you it's entertaining and I love his cadence and his energy. He's a good dude. I got to tell you it's entertaining and I love his cadence and his energy. He's a good dude. Chefs, we've been using Metro hot boxes, shelving and their mobile prep cart around the studio and we couldn't be happier. If you're planning on reorganizing your kitchen life, be sure you contact our friends at Metro, your partner in organization and efficiency.

Speaker 1: 2:56

Okay, so walk and talk is at the Bocuse d'Or taking place in New Orleans right now. This is the Professional Chefs Mount Everest of Culinary Competitions. Our very own Chef, pooch Rivera, is at the show. He's having a blast. He's giving impromptu interviews of James Beard, michelin celebrity chefs who are attending the event. It's pretty amazing and I'm glad we're there. I just want to give a big thanks to Glenn Haggerty of Love NOLA TV for the invite and the footage. Follow our IG at walkintalkshow to follow along. All right, and, by the way, he's uh, he's had like superstar chefs already. Um chefs, uh, sue, uh, suzanne Spicer, uh, carlos Gaetan and Julio Machado so far, and I know there's a lot more to come. Uh, I keep getting texts like all over the place Jefferson, sure, you went to culinary school, yeah, and it helped you. It provided you a pretty hell of a long career. Good life For the most part, yeah, yeah, where we are today it's a little scary, right?

Speaker 1: 4:14

Okay, we're going to get into a little bit more about that, but first it's pre-shift and we're talking flan. Now I don't want to hurt your feelings today, it's not. You know, I love you, you know I do so. Just john, okay, um, I folks audience my mother, my cuban mother-in-law 70, I shouldn't say the age she- I asked her.

Speaker 1: 4:43

I said I said, ma, do me a favor, I want you to make a flan for the show. We're gonna shoot it, you know. Do the photography, john's gonna make you know, make you a superstar. So she did it and, man, nobody's disappointed here, I, I just enjoyed the hell out of it I think one of us, more than any of us, enjoyed it more to my right, silent dude, Silent John.

Speaker 1: 5:06

Yeah, John man. Well, so first of all, he makes a pretty pretty mean flaunt too. John does. But you know I always have this thing about our elders you know mothers, grandparents, you know grandmother, specifically when it comes to food, and when you can still capture some of that, like at the ages that we are, to me it makes it, um, even that much more special. So the fact that you know john got to capture something that's so such a staple in in the culture, in the cuban culture, for me it was pretty, you know, it means a lot. Even my wife and you know I showed her, I sent a picture over it. She was dumbfounded. So hats off to you, as always, John.

Speaker 3: 5:54

Yeah, there was a very. This is a traditional Cuban flan, is what I got. Yeah, but it was like a versus today.

Speaker 1: 6:00

It was like the Cuban flan is what I got, yeah, but it was like a versus today. It was like the cuban the cuban flan versus the chefified, yeah flan which, by the way, it was nothing like flan but was amazingly delicious. I told you I would eat. I would eat a bowl of that right.

Speaker 3: 6:16

Go ahead and explain what you did so this actually stems from what two or three weeks ago now, with chef rosanna came on and she was. We talked about flan and I'm like, oh, smoked flan would be really good. Yeah, that's what sparked it. Last week I did it, overcooked it, the custard went a little bit too heavy, it got too thick, so I wanted to kind of recreate it and I found silicone molds that I had in the house, did it again with the same batch. Now it's going to be reaching out to some friends of mine that are in pastry that be like all right, this is what I did.

Speaker 3: 6:49

What am I doing wrong? Because I'm not getting that. I'm getting a, a mound of caramel on the top of it and I want that mound. I want it where your mother-in-law's was like smooth, yeah, yeah, your mother-in-law's definitely was different, texture wise, everything. It was just your atypical go to Cuban restaurant, go to a Cuban family's house and have the flan.

Speaker 3: 7:08

Like you were talking about traditional. You know Keith always mentions like when you have food from the Indian culture and you have the aunties right and I instantly think of aunties right, and I instantly think of aunties like that's my aunties. My mother that's who taught me, gave me the palate I have today and that's the where the passion comes from and stems from. It's all the stuff that was when I was a kid, growing up, and the, the food comas that we'd have, having the different traditions that we would have in our, our home, but having the family and then certain people. I have no idea why, but I had certain ants that did jello molds.

Speaker 3: 7:41

I have no idea why jello molds were even a thing. I don't think, god, we don't do jello molds anymore Because at my age I still look at jello molds and go, uh no, and we're not talking the J-E-L-L-O, we're talking like had, like marshmallows and different things in it back in the day. I don't know where it came from. I it back in the day. I don't know where it came from. I will never make those. Sorry to everybody that that says I love jello molds but I don't think you're gonna get one yeah, I just don't.

Speaker 3: 8:08

But I think that's where it stems from, when you're being a chef and you have that passion.

Speaker 1: 8:12

Um, what's your upbringing? Well, so, so, speaking of upbringing and passion, um, I think a lot of people today who end up having a desire to get into culinary and you know, traditionally speaking, you get into the restaurant business in general because it's a last resort and in many cases it's. You know, you find your passion once you fall into it. Today, with the advent of the celebrity chef, you know, over the last 25 years or so, you have people that actually seek to go into culinary and if it's driven by passion and it's driven like for us, like it's, there's a lot of culture and history, you know, lineage, family, that kind of stuff. If you take that and you apply it to going to a culinary school, for example, I feel like that is, that is the way to go today and you learn the right way and it's not because your back was against the wall you know you had rent or whatever like this is.

Speaker 1: 10:02

this is a different scenario and with that I'd like to welcome chef Kirk Bachman. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2: 10:12

Thanks for having me I super entertaining. I was just gonna go get a get a cocktail and a lunch here and just keep listening to you guys. This is absolute fabulous. Thanks for bringing up the uh Boku, by the way. Um, I've been, I've been tracking it uh online. How exciting is that.

Speaker 1: 10:31

Well, so it's super exciting. I wanted to be there. We all did here, jeff, and we all wanted to be there and schedules just didn't allow for it. Um, but pooch, you know he, pooch Rivera, he's um that's his home base.

Speaker 3: 10:45

That's it.

Speaker 1: 10:45

Yeahooch, you know Pooch Rivera he's, that's his home base. Yeah, he's in New Orleans.

Speaker 3: 10:48

He's a local favorite chef over there Did you see who he was with, by the way, when Big shout out to Amy Sins oh yeah, she's right next to him, amy.

Speaker 1: 10:55

Sins. I have the. He did an interview with her yesterday.

Speaker 3: 10:59

Oh, did he All right great person that we had and she was one of the first people we ever had on.

Speaker 1: 11:05

Remember I think she might've been on the first show.

Speaker 3: 11:07

Actually she was. It was Ian. No, I think so Right before Ian, cause that was the, the brothers Seth and right.

Speaker 1: 11:17

Well, there was one, or Spent a little time with her, and she is one of the impromptu interviews that I have, in fact, on file. Nice, yes, so yeah, that's an amazing thing, kirk. I wish that I were there right now. You know the reports is just like you know Thomas Keller and you know Baloo Everybody's there, daniel.

Speaker 3: 11:43

Baloo was there.

Speaker 2: 11:43

Everybody is there. And it's really, it's really gained momentum not to cut you off there.

Speaker 2: 11:51

I mean I get excited too, and we I'm a little bit of a nerd when it comes to, you know, any sort of information that's going on, whether it's the James Beard awards, you know Best New Restaurants in the World Awards, whatever but this is really really big. You know, we're probably going to talk about grit a little bit today, but you know I want to get up in front of students and I talk about what these candidates put themselves through to achieve that podium. It's absolutely fantastic. Speaking of podiums, if I could, I think when we first connected I told you I was in a really, really good mood. I had a great night.

Speaker 2: 12:33

I don't know if you guys have kids. I've got four kids, three girls and a boy and my entire life I have coached my son in something. First it was soccer. That's the easiest stuff, right? No offense to anybody out there the easiest stuff. Well, he wasn't good at that, let's just say. Then I coached him for years in basketball, right, but baseball is his thing, right? Baseball, that's his jam. He's 13 years old, about to go into high school, and I coached him all the way through.

Speaker 2: 13:07

And it hit me last night the good guys won last night 17 to 7. It was unreal 14 hits. We never have 14 hits in a Little League ballgame. So I was already emotional because we've only got one game left and that's it. And it hit me that I'm not coaching anymore. He's moved, he's already playing with the local high school. They don't want me on the field.

Speaker 2: 13:31

And then, to top it all off, you know we win the game last night. It's a great game, and one of the kids, one of his buddies, who had coached I don't know, maybe five or six years A real quiet kid, not a talented kid, but a really good kid. And he just comes over to me and says this was my last game coach and I just want to thank you for the last several years. I didn't know whether to hug him. You can't do that. I didn't know whether I wanted to hug him or fry him, but it really hit me. But then I get on the call with you guys today and there's nothing that can upset me. Today I was in such a good mood. I'm a little emotional about walking away from coaching, but we're going to talk about grit and we're going to talk about culinary school today, so that'll keep me going.

Speaker 1: 14:16

Well, first off, congratulations on that. And to your boy yeah, you know, we all, you know there's kids, we have kids here, children, and at the end of the day you know it's hard to watch them grow up and let go. But if you were coaching, you know the same, as you know there's teaching going on and it kind of ties together and you know you have to let your students go at some point too. Same sort of a feel. So why don't you take, why don't you take um, take a minute and give the airplane view of who you are, where you came from and how you landed the uh, you know the top role over at the school.

Speaker 2: 15:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so, so appreciative, um, and you know, from a, from a place of humility but, more than anything, of pride, I uh, I've always, uh, I'll tell you a funny story when we get to it. But, um, you know, I just grew up, uh, the son of a baker, fourth generation, my father's. Uh, the way they do it in germany, he has what's called his master breach, so he's a some master do it in Germany. He has what's called his Meisterbrief, so it's a master baker. And you know, things are a little different in Europe. He did that because, in order to own a bakery, you can work in a bakery, but you can't own a bakery unless you achieve this level of Meisterbrief. So it's that. You know, we call it a partnership over here. But you know, he did, he did three-year formal partnership and a six-year journeymanship, and then, you know, then he's 26 years old and, um, he wanted to come to america and we landed in chicago and and, by the way, he was fourth generation, right, so after the war, and you know, the bakery was gone and all that uh, but he still pursued the passion that his dad and his grandfather and his grandfather great-grandfather did, and we landed in Chicago.

Speaker 2: 16:07

I came along Like a lot of immigrants. We kind of bounced back and forth between Europe and finally landed in Chicago for quite a while and had a bakery down in the city. So I was that kid that went to par parochial school in in downtown chicago. And, you know, during lunch, you know I looked over and you know that kid over there had bologna on white bread and that kid over there had leftover pizza from the night before. And then I looked down at my lunch and I had, uh, I had liverwurst on rye bread that had been made that morning, and uh with mustard and onions and and uh, in a beautiful slice of black forest story. And and you know, at the time I was like God, I just want the, I want the Cheetos and the and the bologna sandwich. But man, I'm, I'm, I'm so, I'm so thankful that they kept sending me to, uh, to school with those kinds of desserts and stuff.

Speaker 1: 17:04

You know I didn't. I didn't realize it then, Kirk were you trading at the Black Forest? Yeah, all the time.

Speaker 2: 17:11

All the time the big fan favorite were donuts, though. If I could get into the bakery, slip up to the front, you know, flirt a little with the ladies up front and I can take a dozen donuts and long johns we used to call them. Those were a fan favorite. I could get anything I wanted.

Speaker 1: 17:35

I could get on snack pack for that, or I could get a jello mold that you're talking about, kirk, when you show up with the sweets and Kirk when you look at your father and the baking aspect, when you were kind of finding yourself, or finding yourself coming to that path of cooking, was baking you know kind of something you wanted to embrace, or you kind of went the other way wanted to embrace, or is that you?

Speaker 2: 18:06

you kind of went the other way. You know I enjoyed it, but I was at the, you know I was at the bottom of the, the totem pole, as they say, bottom of the ladder, right. So when and I was young, when I was doing things in the bakery now, I always had the best you can imagine, the best birthday cakes. I mean I had rocket ships, I had baseball fields. It was amazing. But when I worked a little bit in the bakery, it was an old, old building, an old, old bakery with wooden floors, and when you bake all day and their shift used to be start at three in the morning, work through the day and then my dad would come up to our flat at, around you know, six o'clock or whatever. Um, it was a long day and and and so you had to go down there and scrape the floor. You had literally scrape all of the, um, you know the sweet items and the and the stuff that fell off the bench. Um, with a scraper, with a little foreign scraper right, and we had all kinds of high school kids that would come in and do that stuff. So, to answer your question, I wasn't turned on by it. I enjoyed the food and the final products but, man, it's like really All these sheet pans that I have to wash and stuff like that. But I will tell you that.

Speaker 2: 19:24

You know, shortly thereafter I was going into high school and we relocated to Colorado. My family bought a hotel and a restaurant and that's where it all kind of just came together for me in a different way. You know, my dad was working in the middle of the night and the people that enjoyed those products was working in the middle of the night and the people that enjoyed those products you know he didn't see them. But in the restaurant business, when we were, you know, cranking stuff off the line and that, that, that sense of um, uh, satisfaction that you would see in a customer's face when you put a beautiful meal in front of them, that's that's when I started thinking, you know, maybe I'm not going to play for the Cubs, but I could maybe do this. I could do this. I was just like anybody else. I wanted to play MLB.

Speaker 1: 20:13

Well, what was your position?

Speaker 2: 20:16

Center field.

Speaker 1: 20:17

Okay, yeah, I like second base short. I didn't mind center man, I tell you what you get older I want to get out there. So bad. But I'm like you know what. It is not absolutely zero percent worth popping a hamstring or an achilles not at your age. No, man forget about it that's why you coach.

Speaker 1: 20:35

That's why you're into coaching that's why you see, there you go, so yeah yeah so let's talk about the similarities between, uh, professional technical skills and the differences of how you would learn through an online application, and I kind of just jumped ahead a little bit, but I kind of want to set the stage to what this is. And you work, you're with. It's the largest online culinary school around, am I wrong?

Speaker 2: 21:11

No, no, no, Even if you just look at you know pure population. You have two ground campuses and then the online presence. You know upwards of 7000 students. Yeah, we, we have a nice presence here in America.

Speaker 2: 21:25

And you know, I think that the really cool thing to do is to sort of back up a little bit and and and let everybody know that you know, for me, um, edu, education is super, super important, um, and that that's probably what I learned from my dad. I'm going to kind of fold that grit piece into that. You know, great, on the baseball field with these, with these young kids, is about um, I need you to slide, I need you to slide, you can't just run the second base. You got to slide, you got to slide and you got to get dirty, you got to get under the tag, and it's not easy at first, but when they start demonstrating the grit that they I mean they want it, they really want it, and so it's the same thing. It's the same thing in our industry.

Speaker 2: 22:15

I went to the University of Oregon, tried to play baseball there for a bit. It was really important to my family that I got an education and if you asked my dad, today he's 88, if you would call him up right now and say, hey, what did Kirk study in college? He'd have no idea, because for him it was a means to an end. Right, he, it was the, the american dream. Um, my dad loves america and and and the opportunity that he got here and he just wanted his family, you know, to take that on.

Speaker 2: 22:47

So when I finished at the university of oregon, came back, worked in family business and then he sent me back to a small culinary school in portland, oregon's, where he knew some of the chefs and even though I had been working in his kitchen, he knew that I needed someone else to kind of create some formality around it. And I really enjoyed it. I really, really enjoyed it. And that was old school right. That's where knowledge was kept. You had to go to culinary school. I applied to the CIA in New York and I got accepted. For the following year I was like no, you're going to culinary school next week. So I went up to Portland and really, really, really enjoyed it. It was old school, right. All of our chefs were from Europe. We were there eight hours a day, you had to be clean-shaven and all that.

Speaker 1: 23:43

It was a little rough right, that's just the way it was back then. Jeff is over here shaking his head. I'm just getting triggered.

Speaker 3: 23:52

That's why I don't wear white.

Speaker 2: 23:53

He's getting some memories, right.

Speaker 3: 23:54

Yeah, I don't wear white, getting some memories right. Yeah, I don't wear white I mean he's.

Speaker 2: 23:56

He's not lying. You gotta ask. Jeffrey was, hey, jeffrey was um was for them. That's there.

Speaker 3: 24:02

When you were at cia yeah, well, no, I wasn't at cia, so mets used to come down to johnson and wales because he knew robert norgrad and robert was a dear, dear, huge, huge culinarian for me in my past because it was just an honor to have. So Robert Norgreib was actually one of the first American chefs that was a master chef, his story chef. Do you know his story, robert Norgreib Of?

Speaker 2: 24:28

how he became a chef.

Speaker 3: 24:30

So one day I'm sitting in quantitative and he sits next to me and he speaks all these different languages. Obviously he's from Austria and I sat down and I asked him. I said so how did you become a chef? And he goes in auschwitz. Only the people that cooked got to eat. And I just stood there for a second like what did he just say? And then he made a like a joke about it. Afterwards and I'm no being jewish myself and having studied that world history part I was amazed that I met somebody who survived it and out of that, from the ashes, he became a chef and then the first master chef. He was an amazing individual, so ferdinand used to go down and talk to him a lot.

Speaker 2: 25:08

so I met ferdinand yeah, yeah, great, great, yeah, shivers, and you know. So, coming coming back to going going to culinary school myself and really enjoying it, being able to apply, you know what I learned in the business then you know, for for quite some time, for me it really it became. It became about the education Working alongside my father. Coming back to the grit piece, I got to tell you and I'm sure that you guys love to talk about unreasonable hospitality, but it was. It was about customer service, it was grit, it was about creating a positive environment in that restaurant. The customer drove everything.

Speaker 2: 26:02

If a customer didn't like a meal, there was no conversation. It was we get the customer something that they want right 100%. But the most interesting thing, you know, working alongside my father for years was was what were some of the intangibles that I just never even thought about? He'd come up out of nowhere and basically just say so what are you going to do, in this thick German accent, if the ice machine breaks down, like out of nowhere? You know services in 15 minutes. What are you going to do if the ice machine breaks down? You know, and I probably had some, you know, smarty pants. Answers back then, you know, like I don't know, dad, I would call you.

Speaker 2: 26:44

I don't know, I don't know Right, but but I I don't. I don't care if you go to school online or you go to school in person or you do an apprenticeship. I'm just such a big fan of trying harder and thinking outside of the box and grit. But I will say that almost every day I sit on the Boulder Colorado campus but I manage the online population through here, but I have the luxury of all the kitchens here so I can go talk to the chef instructors all the time. And what's really changed, really changed. I know I'm jumping back and forth, but what's really really changed is that our students are really smart and they know what they want and they like immediate gratification.

Speaker 2: 27:35

I was listening to one of your earlier episodes and the whole conversation around social media came up and it's super, super interesting how our students connect to us with and through social media. So it used to be like I said when I went to culinary school you had to go because that's where knowledge was kept, but not today. I just encourage our teachers to be facilitators of knowledge. Just flip the classroom right, listen to your students, you know, give them assignments and that sort of stuff. But listen to them, listen to stories of their heritage and you know the flan stories you know from their grandparents and stuff like that. That's where we are today, so it is an exciting time. My population in Colorado and in Austin has gotten really young, really really young, with a huge emphasis on pastry. Young, really, really young, with a huge emphasis on pastry. A lot of people really, really interested in pastry. But this younger population knows exactly what they want and and how they want to do it.

Speaker 1: 28:45

How wrong was I in my opening monologue when I say that the industry needs the creatives, they need these, they need young blood, energy. Um, because I feel there there's just this void of talent, and I don't mean talented, I just mean personnel.

Speaker 2: 29:17

I'm an optimist and I talk to as many restauranteurs as I can here. Everything sort of shifted. I used to get really, really worried when I was younger. What's going to happen when the Austrian chefs and the German chefs and the French chefs retire and they're no longer here? Who are we going to learn from? And and and, then god, then the curtis stuffies and then the gavin casens, and you know, the next generation just came pouring on through and and uh, uh I I got even more and more and more excited. Curtis stuff is a big fan, a big friend of the school, and so I use him a as a beautiful example of what, you know, the culinary world looks like to me today and we bring him in front of our students. It's super, super, super exciting.

Speaker 2: 30:05

I, I think the industry like when I talk to some restaurateurs here, they're they're excited about the fact that they can do more for their employees in terms of wages and benefits and things like that, but they have to do more with fewer because they can't afford to have the massive staffs that they used to have. Remember the days in the restaurant business where you'd bring your staff at five o'clock was a little different than the staff at seven, right? So if you got hit with a rush and it took you, you know, from five to seven, 30, everybody stayed. But for some reason, you know, you know people decided to go do something else and you didn't get that second rush, you just cut people loose, right? I don't know that. That's the scenario that we have today. They're doing more, they're cutting away from, you know, lunch service, breakfast service, things like that.

Speaker 2: 31:03

I do think that it's a really, really exciting. Well, I see it. I see that it's an exciting time for young people coming into this industry because there is a ton of opportunity in these places that need them. Surely, we bring as many employers you know for the ground campuses, we just bring them here, do career fairs and things like that. So that's exciting for the students. Online, we do a lot of that virtually, of course, we can chat more about online, if you like and like how that all works, how, how they, how they learn and such for me, chef.

Speaker 3: 31:38

Um, one of the things we talked about is now with social media and the way things are like. I follow this young kid who is um, he's probably in his 20s and he's got a massive following and he does all these different things. He's self-taught. How do you get somebody like that to say, hey, you still need to go to culinary school? And how do you approach that as somebody? Because you know, again, schools had to change the way things were post-covid, even prior to covid, because you and I talked about how the irs changed things too. So if we can get into some of that, that'd be fantastic as well.

Speaker 2: 32:14

You know, I, for me and this sounds like a cliche what I see it's, it's, it's, it's not an either or it's an hand, right? Um? So I use two examples. Um, there's a, there's a really I won't say his name, but there's a great restaurant tour about 300 yards from from our school and he's got a great business. Great business.

Speaker 2: 32:37

I hadn't met him for quite some time. He's been there for 31 years and I go there all the time. I love it. It's casual, but it's really, really, really good. And he hires a ton of our students, a ton.

Speaker 2: 32:51

And I walked in not that long ago it was a really, really, really busy night and I was with my wife and a bunch of other people and we're trying to get a table. And my wife knew him and, you know, pulled me over to introduce me to him and he immediately, you know, just went down this like why should I hire your students? Why should your students go to school for X when I can pay them $25 an hour to come to school? And of course, you know I've heard it before, right? So you know, I just shook his hand and said gosh, it's so good to meet you. And you know, I'm just going to tell you that we don't make anyone come to school. It's their choice. It's their choice that they want to come to school. They don't have to go to school. We want to educate those who want to be with us, right, and now he's like my best friend, right, so he just he loved the response, right, and we've worked better together now. But coming back to my comment of it can be an, and coming back to my comment of it can be an, and, and I'm going to use the example of the podcast that I host, right, the Ultimate Dish. So when that started, it was all about, you know, friends of Kirk, all you know, ed Leonard, all these people that I've known in the industry for years. And let's just talk about the industry. Let talk about food, it will matter. Let's talk about what you've done in your career and all of that stuff. Right, and my marketing team. You know, maybe a year and a half a year, and started really focusing on and I'm sorry, some kids are pounding in the pastry lab next door there. Hopefully that's not too loud, but it's real. I mean I got 20 pastry kids right around the corner here. It's character man, we love it and they walk by and they see I've got a big sign on there that says I'm on a podcast. I'll be there in a minute Because they just walked into my.

Speaker 2: 34:54

I was sitting in kind of a glass bowl but I didn't. I have to be honest with you guys, I and I didn't, I, I didn't know about the what they call influencers on on social media and Instagram. I like Instagram for sports, right. I like following, you know Deon Sanders and Michael Jordan and seeing how my teams are doing. But then all of a sudden, you know Gabby Dalkin and Danielle Suspy and Dan Dan Grosie Pelosi you probably know I mean Daphne Oz.

Speaker 2: 35:25

These people have unbelievable followings and they're influencers and they may not have fallen to culinary school, but they have one thing in common with all of us they have a passion for cooking and they love the craft. They freaking love the craft. So for me, those have been some of the best conversations that I've had on my show with people who you know they're not pretentious, they, you know we're not necessarily talking about ACF metals, but we are talking about really, really, really cool dishes, right? So, um, I and, and, and I think the Scoffier, um, and I hate it when I get too far into the marketing stuff, but I think Escoffier uses social media as a way, you know, to connect our students and our instructors and our fans and our families and our followers and whomever with the authentic Escoffier. So we have a studio in Chicago where we do all of our formal content for the program. It's pretty sophisticated, it's pretty cool actually.

Speaker 2: 36:41

But for social media they just want student work. They don't want anything that's staged, they want everything that's genuine, authentic, organic, as they say. That's genuine, authentic, organic, as they say. So I spend a good part of my day, you know, cruising around the classrooms and just getting the students to laugh and talk and tell me what they're working on, and you know that sort of thing. I've given you way too much of an answer for a simple question. I apologize.

Speaker 3: 37:13

It's not that really simple. I mean, it's one of those are the things, the basis for the industry that we need to change. I mean, 25, 30 years ago I was, you know, a server. Then I got into the kitchen and it was Patrick Utter from Shenanigans in Hollywood that said to me, if I had the opportunity to go to culinary school and you have it, because Miami was just opening up for Johnson and Wales I would go there. And it was. It was him that was the one that kind of mentored me to take that ship and then take that lighthouse to cruise on over to being in the industry. But I'd already been doing it for 12 years.

Speaker 3: 37:47

So when I went in, I went in during the weekends. So I worked the five, five days a week, actually six days a week in the industry. I had two jobs during the week one and two during the weekend, and I went Saturday and Sundays for 12 hours. And you talk about the grid, you talk about the difference of wanting to be there and having to be there. Most of the people in my class, because we were the weekend, we had 250 that started out. I think we graduated with only 12. Oh wow, those 12 people had grit, look chef, what, what is it that that?

Speaker 2: 38:25

um, it's hard. I wish I could jar it right. I wish I could can it, but it's it, you said it perfectly. Wanting and having to be there. It's, you know, feeling that rush when the wheel is full. Right, the past is just madness, right, but some people, those who have grit, that's when they kick in. I mean they kick in, and others it's not. For them, it's like any sport, though, or any field, right, you know, not everyone can, you know, step up to the next level.

Speaker 2: 39:04

Think about what we all went through, you know, during the pandemic. It was a lonely time, right. And I think about, you know just, the demographic of who goes to culinary school. So, for our Brown campuses, it's pretty mixed, right, you know about 50-50 female learners to male learners, but when I look at, like, hot maps or heat maps, you know where, I see where all of our students are.

Speaker 2: 39:35

This idea of someone think about somebody who lives in a rural area and maybe doesn't have a lot of money, but has always just loved to cook because their grandmother cooked, or their grandfather cooked, or their mother cooked.

Speaker 2: 39:53

And what online education did for these folks? Is it allowed them to access it in the privacy and the comfort of their own home, without the additional cost of relocating across the country, having to pay rent, you know, elsewhere, leave their families, maybe, leave people that they're taking care of. And what's really, really interesting about all of that is that, you know, just prior to the pandemic coming through the pandemic coming out of the pandemic, our student population for online has flipped to 70 female, 30 male, so it's historically been an easy entrance for males into the industry, but what online education allowed females to do was is to follow their passion, and that's one of the things that I'll, you know, really look back on with with. You know, some sense of satisfaction and pride that we, we what just innovation, right? Online education gave this opportunity to be a cook for life, to to engage in the craft of cooking that they may never have been able to do previously. So many, so many schools have closed right.

Speaker 3: 41:13

Yeah, that's one of the things I was going to get into. So, with that being said, like I'm sitting here and I know about online, we've talked off air and some of the chefs that will be listening to this and will be saying how do you do an online class and how are they going to taste the food? How do they know it's the right way of doing it? If they've never made it before? How do they know it's?

Speaker 2: 41:37

the right way of doing it. If they've never made it before, how do they go about doing something like that? Yeah, yeah, and this is probably a whole different podcast, right, a whole different conversation, and it, historically, is the number one question we get, right, who tastes the food? Who tastes the food? So, you know, first and foremost, we're proud of the chef instructors that have come to work for us, so they, too, are passionate about the industry. They're experienced and the way it basically works is that, you know, we have a learning management system, so the students basically have their courses online. They can access this from their laptop, from their iPad, from their phone. Most students, quite honestly, access everything from their phone, so they have the opportunity to view all kinds of demonstrations of a variety of all the traditional techniques and that sort of stuff, and they flow through the program just like any other culinary school. Right, they have sanitation and introduction to culinary arts, and they have their introduction to baking and gamage and things like that, their introduction to baking and gamage and things like that. It's asynchronous for the most part, meaning the students can access their information when it's comfortable for them. That's why online education makes sense for them, right? They're either taking care of their family or they're working, and they can only dedicate X amount of time to this asynchronous experience. There are a few times during the week where they have the opportunity to jump into live sessions with their chef instructors, where they can ask questions or they can discuss, or they can watch a demo and that sort of thing. But the genesis of all of it, the genius of all of this, is our students are provided with all sorts of direction, right.

Speaker 2: 43:39

We came up with this really, really cool. I have one sitting right here in front of me. It's called the Flavor Wheel. So you know, chef, what's really, really important is that you can. Muscle memory will get somebody through roasting a chicken or searing a piece of protein the way that chef wants them to. But the cognitive piece is what's so, so important? Do they understand what they're doing? Do they understand the relationship between aroma, taste and mouthfeel? So we've created both a digital and a physical flavor wheel. Think of it as like a tatavan, just a small little tool that helps students understand that words like full-bodied, comforting, appetizing, buttery briny that might reflect something that's savory, right, whereas something that's peppery or spiced or fiery, that might be spicy, or a lot of our students that come to us. They don't know the relationship between aroma, taste and mouthfeel, so we have to help them with that.

Speaker 2: 44:50

So then they get their assignment right. They're in the comfort of their own home, they've gone through their shopping list, they know exactly what ingredients they need, they've seen the videos. Then they execute and then they take a series of photos with the phone and then they upload it into the system. Very, very simple. We use a tool to just upload the photos right from their phone into our LMS and then each one of our instructors is required to create a video feedback loop for the students. So they take a look at every single photo and the photos are all very organized, right? So you have your mise en place photo. You have to demonstrate a pH strip so that we know that your sanitation is where it's supposed to be. Then you have several in-process photos, right?

Speaker 2: 45:43

If you're making empanadas, we need to see the dough, we need to see the dough resting, we need to see the salsa that you make to go with it, and so on and so forth. And then they make that video. They call it a 10 or 15-minute video that every instructor has to provide to every student for every assignment that they upload. So to answer the question of who tastes the food, the student tastes the food. So the student does all of that, they do the cooking and then they have to provide a narrative. They have to be able to explain to the instructor what's happening and good, bad and ugly right so that the instructor can make that educated assessment on whether or not the student is grasping the concept that they're being taught or have the opportunity to be taught. So that's basically how it works and we have a variety of different programs. So obviously our culinary program is focused on culinary pastry and pastry and plant-based, and plant-based and plant-based, so on and so forth.

Speaker 1: 46:57

So does that help a little bit? A little, yeah, of course it does. But that leads me to a question. So you know plant-based and farm-to-table, like what sort of what data shows what students are most interested in? Do you have you know what brings them to the school most? Is it because you know right now plant-based, you know food is trending, or is it because somebody you know wants to learn? You know traditional or classic, classically trained, you know culinary arts, like what is it that's bringing them in?

Speaker 2: 47:35

Yeah, by far the most popular program is our is our culinary arts and operations program. That's, that's our. You know, our basic culinary arts program. Pastry arts would be, you know. Second to that, we the the programs like plant-based and food, entrepreneurship and holistic wellness. They're more boutique programs. You don't have as many students in those, but those are very, very intentional, pointed students that know exactly what they want.

Speaker 2: 48:09

We do plant-based education here on ground, in Boulder and online, and I have to tell you I want to talk about grit they're the most educated. They come to us with a wealth of knowledge. This education is allowing them the freedom to express themselves. They already know what they want. They want to go out into the world and they want to make a difference, and they don't necessarily need to land in a restaurant or a hotel that is exclusively plant-based. They want to bring their message and help enhance other establishments that may not have a robust, you know, plant-based menu and that sort of thing.

Speaker 2: 48:54

And I should say and, chef, you probably remember this from your days at JWU that it's a very highly regulated industry when you think about education. So all of our students that come to school, there's milestones, there's requirements from our accreditors of how many students have to finish the program, and then you know, on top of that, how many students need to find gainful employment in the industry. So if someone comes to us and they're seeking a plant-based education, it's our responsibility to help them find employment in that field Not the pastry field, not the culinary arts field, not the hospitality, restaurant management field, but in the plant-based field. That's what they came to school for and that's what our responsibility is.

Speaker 1: 49:48

How do you go about assisting or aiding in that job search?

Speaker 2: 49:55

or aiding in that job search. Yeah, we have an immense collection of resources for both online and on-ground, so we start early too. So student comes to school, they immediately are introduced to our career services department. We try to get some of that information up front when they first come to school, like what are you looking to do and what are your goals? And some students don't really know what they want to do. Many do, many do I want to open up a food truck, I want to work for Curtis Duffy, I want to go to New York, I want to go to Germany, whatever it is.

Speaker 2: 50:37

And then we work together with the student. We don't hand them their path, they work with us on their path. So it's a lot of conversations, it's a lot of interaction, it's a lot of introductions to different employers that come to the campus and then they go through the program, whether on ground or online, and everyone, even the online students, have to complete an externship at the end of their program, meaning that they have to go to a physical establishment and execute x amount of hours to complete the entire program. More times than not, we try to help students land in an externship at a very attractive place to them a place where they may want to stay, and a high percentage of our students actually convert from their externship site to their first, you know, real job in the industry.

Speaker 1: 51:44

What I think is interesting is how the legacy continues with the great grandson Michael Escoffier, and he's, you know, an active board member or on the advisory board. I should say, how does that play into all of this?

Speaker 2: 51:54

Yeah, so, and thanks for bringing that up. He's not only you know, a legacy, but Michel is you know, he's a friend. He's very, very active. He turned 80 in March. I talked to him last night. He spends his time, he shares his time between Nice.

Speaker 1: 52:32

He shares his time between Nice and Nice. From our previous conversation offline and now my French.

Speaker 3: 52:39

my French reading and pronunciation is horrible, Of course, so say that, say that you have a different French version than what he just said Absolutely, I absolutely do.

Speaker 1: 52:52

But can you say, say, say the location again, lulule.

Speaker 2: 52:56

Lulule.

Speaker 1: 52:56

Bay Okay.

Speaker 2: 52:56

Wonderful, but can you say the location again, lulule Villaloo Bay. Okay, wonderful Villaloo Bay. Yeah, I'll send it to you.

Speaker 3: 53:03

It won't look anything like it's spelled, not naturally.

Speaker 2: 53:08

Yeah, yeah, it's a little scrambled, yeah, it takes a minute, but yeahelle is actively involved in and and and the really cool thing is, if you ever get to villa lula bay, it's not tough. Um, you know direct flights from denver to, uh, uh, to frankfurt or to paris, and then you can shoot down into the south of france. But, um, the home that auguste scoffier grew up in, um for the last 50 years, was was turned into a museum by by michelle and his family, and um, it's probably four or five stories high and it just it's a collection, just name it. Um, it's, it's unbelievable. You know the original desk where Auguste wrote. You know some of the 6,000 recipes from Le Guy.

Speaker 3: 54:02

La Repertoire de Cuisine is one of the main ones that he's done for La Repertoire de Cuisine. Sorry, chef, yeah.

Speaker 2: 54:12

No, it's all there. And so, for example, in September, I will take a group of 13 or 14 or 15 employees of our company. We'll dine and we'll hang with Michelle, we'll tour the museum, and so it's kind of a it's, it's, it's, uh, you know it's a cool story. Um, michelle was never a chef. He, he, he went into the world of banking, as did his father before him, um, but I, I've never met an individual who uhquently and you know, just has such reverence for you know his great grandfather's history. He speaks often, not every year, but every fall we have a large graduation, as you can imagine, large graduation, as you can imagine, and we do it on the campus of Colorado University here in Boulder, in a beautiful, beautiful auditorium called Mackey, and you know there's two or three thousand people show up. The majority are the online students who come from all parts of the country to to walk across the stage. And you know, let's say, every other year, michelle will make the trip and you know, address the crowd.

Speaker 2: 55:36

So you know what that does it it is, you know, it's um, it's a connection is what it is it's, it's, it's validation right like gosh, this is real, this is a real, this is a real brand, right it's? Uh, you remember? Um so so, johnson Wales, carl Carl Guggenmoss was he around when you were a student?

Speaker 3: 56:00

Uh, miami, miami location, no, not so much Probably Providence, though.

Speaker 2: 56:06

Yeah, yeah. But, um, you know, being being a student of this craft for as many years as I have, you know when. When you would say you know, you know theinary Institute of America, you would say you know. For Ned Matz, you would say Jay Wu, you would say, carl, you know, you know, so on and so forth.

Speaker 3: 56:22

And so you know, for us, you know, augusta Scoffier is is, is really, really, really important and we have somebody here who's not into the food scene as much he does food photography and maybe other people listening. What is the big deal about Auguste Escoffier?

Speaker 2: 56:42

Because people might not know. Yeah, it's a long, long story. Think about imagining a human being who, 100 years ago, was a great cook, right, but also brought some based on his. You are going to focus on the protein cookery, you're going to focus on the vegetable cookery, you're going to focus on the roasting, so on and so forth. So he brought a brigade system, as we like to refer to it, to the kitchen. He and Korem before him were really respectful about the craft and the uniform and to look good in the kitchen. You know, there's stories that Michelle tells of Auguste being really really concerned with benefits and working conditions and work-life balance a hundred years ago for his chefs.

Speaker 2: 57:54

And then I'm looking at my book right now. You know, le Guy, it's not a recipe book, it's a book of technique, right. So it's a difficult book to master, it's a difficult book to read, um, but it, uh, it, uh, it laid the foundation of technique driving, uh, education in our field versus, you know, a collection of recipes. So we try to focus to that it. For example, sauteing is an art, right, it's really really interesting, um, and important that a student understands the technique of sautéing and then we'll introduce different flavor profiles and different ingredients which we might find are applied to sautéing around the world rather than a recipe of sautéing, and other schools may do that as well, but that certainly is what we try to do at Escoffier. So Augustus Escoffier, I guess in many ways was known as the king of chefs and the chef of kings. He partnered with Cesar Ritz, you know, years and years and years ago and brought just a different level of cuisine you know to to to the world.

Speaker 2: 59:16

We were in new york city in january for a big event at, uh, uh, john george's place, um, where we inducted some, some folks into an organization that we call the disciples of the scoffier. So it's a gourmand, uh, society. And Jean-Georges comes to the event and he has, he sees Michel, they embrace and, you know, say hello, they'd met before. And Jean-Georges has a copy of McGee that I don't even know how old it was. It was kind of held together with rubber bands. He had found it in France years and years earlier, right, and he brought it. It was really frail, the pages were fragile and yellow, but Michel signed it. So I don't know if that shivers your spine like it does mine a a book that was written 100 years ago. Um, you know, still gets a chef with the reputation of jean george. Um, excited, that's. Uh, that's augustus coffier. That's that's what he does for our industry.

Speaker 1: 1:00:30

Well, I think, I think it. It kind of brings it full circle to what we were talking about in the beginning of the hour, where it's passion and a lot of it comes from lineage and a lot of it comes from the past, um, you know, and how there's a direct lineage to. For me, I appreciate that in a hundred different ways and I feel like students who are on the fence about um, you know well, should I, should I do such a thing? I want to go to school as a trade school, I want to be a chef. What I want to be, I think you know. You find your passion, you take it, you look at you, look at this, this culinary school. It's prestigious, it has the lineage, it, yes, that's what you want, yeah, and I'll go one step further.

Speaker 3: 1:01:26

So regular college. I went to regular college. I have degrees with that too. I was nowhere near as successful as I was in culinary school. I graduated second in my class, not the 12th I had. That was just the as successful as I was in culinary school. I graduated second in my class, not the 12th I had. That was just the weekend program.

Speaker 1: 1:01:39

So there was more, but there was only three. There were three people.

Speaker 2: 1:01:43

But it was different because again.

Speaker 3: 1:01:47

It posed that thing of being passionate and I had that. That's where I always, at 12 years old, I knew I wanted to become a chef. I just didn't know how to get there. There was Jacques Pepin, there was Julia Childs, there was the Galloping Gourmet, karim Kher, that's who I watched. And then in the 90s we had Emeril come out and he was the JW guy. So it's like, oh cool, but it was already in the industry at that point. And it's ironic because you mentioned something about customer service and you know we mentioned different things.

Speaker 3: 1:02:14

I have, um, ironically, yesterday I just put out a blog about what the whining kitchen aid, and it's about culinary and people asking chefs why they should be going in the culinary field. And now I'm taking the look back and going. I'm so more, so many more years are behind me, that what's in front of me, what's left. So I have the two different perspectives and it's really interesting because as we gain up in age, it's like what's left for us to do, what's left for us to accomplish, and there's so much more still left in the tank, for me at least. And there's, you know, mentoring is one of those two, and there's.

Speaker 2: 1:02:55

You know, mentoring is one of those two. Really well said. I love that you brought up Jacques Pepin. He said once that a great chef is first a great technician. If you're a jeweler or a surgeon or a cook, you have to know the trade in your hand. You have to learn the process. And again, for me it's not an either, or it's an and um the grit, the passion and all. Can I tell you? Do we have time for another story? I got to tell you the story For you. Of course. No, john, john will cut you off. We won't.

Speaker 3: 1:03:33

Somebody's standing over here with one of those umbrella hooks and they're trying to put.

Speaker 2: 1:03:37

They're like kaboom, jeffrey, you're an ACF guy. I have been most of my life, since 1988. And I'll never forget the day I can't remember I think it's when I achieved CWC, right, it used to be a little bit more difficult because you used to have to do these things in front of a certified chef, and it's changed over the years, but anyway, I'll never forget. I got that certificate and I was really excited to show it to my dad and my dad was making croissants or something, right? Yeah, his apron was all dirty. And so I come over there and he looks at it and he doesn't say anything. And so I just take my certificate and I walk away and a couple of hours later, maybe a day later, he pulls me over and he says he says congratulations on your certificate.

Speaker 2: 1:04:34

I'm young, right, he's still baking. You know much older. And he says congratulations. I just want you to remember one thing, one thing all the pieces of paper in the world will never replace wanting to be a great cook for life, and I don't know if anyone has ever said that before. I've stolen his quote on many Instagram posts and different things like that, but back then, all all he ever wanted me to aspire to was to be a great cook for life for life, right. And that's just dabbling in it. You're not just doing a summer job. Be a great cook for life.

Speaker 2: 1:05:18

I just wanted to share that he was on my podcast too.

Speaker 3: 1:05:21

Oh, that's cool Having his dad in.

Speaker 1: 1:05:26

Here's what I want to do Say what your dad's name is, and then say the quote again.

Speaker 2: 1:05:35

You got it. My father's name is Joseph Bachman and the basic quote is aspire to be a great cook for life.

Speaker 1: 1:05:49

And that is beautiful. I did not get to have my dad on my podcast, so that's awesome for you.

Speaker 2: 1:05:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it'll be awesome for his grandkids and his great grandkids and that as well, right? So it's just, uh, I had for them that's on, um, you know, a few weeks ago, um, it was phenomenal. It was phenomenal, he, he, he told stories, um, he would have kept going, he I don't know if you guys know, he wrote a book not too long ago. He'll love that. I just bugged his book, but it's, it's. This is a craft that you have to love and and you have to want, uh, to persevere or have grit to stay, to stay involved, and and that's really all I want my students, our students at Escoffier, I just want them to have that chance. If they live in a rural area and they just want to follow their passion, we're coming to them so that we can kind of help them. Getting too emotional with you guys, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: 1:06:52

No, it's Well listen. Life is emotion. Well, it's passion.

Speaker 3: 1:06:56

It is and it proves the point that when you have that much passion, you can then get, hopefully give part of that passion to the students. And I, you know, being an instructor, you're also a mentor and you're also all coach and all these different things being in the school system. But you, you, you were first a chef and it's just amazing the life you've done and, to this point, what you do for the, the actual industry in our community. So thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:07:23

Oh, thank you Very, very kind. This, this was a lot of fun and if we can ever do anything for, for you, for you guys, please, please, let me know. Appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 1:07:33

Yeah, we're, we're gonna, I think we'll, we're, we're going to have a continued dialogue going forward. I'm fairly certain of that. Why don't you go ahead? And how do we? How do?

Speaker 2: 1:07:47

how does everyone find you? You can literally find us at Escoffieredu and you can find us on what is my, what is our instagram? It's, uh, I should know that off the top of my. That's the stuff you're at schools.

Speaker 1: 1:08:04

Yes, nobody's gonna hold it off the top of no, this is the no judgment zone. Okay, if I don't write it down, I I can't remember anything, all right, I don't even know my wife's phone number. That you have to know. That you have to know and I'm not deleting that, that's not getting omitted from this thing.

Speaker 2: 1:08:25

Don't ever listen to this. That's out there, okay, all right, I'll give her a heads up.

Speaker 1: 1:08:31

You know, oh my God, I wanted to say a bunch of things right there and I learned how to keep my mouth shut. Finally, we're not putting food in there. Kirk Bachman find him at the Ultimate Dish. His podcast Awesome. Check him out. Thanks for being on the show, kirk.

Speaker 2: 1:08:53

Absolutely. Thank you so much. Keep on cooking, we are out.