Early Years: Culinary School

Circa 1982, fresh out of high school, with a little luck I started culinary school in September 1982. The first couple of weeks kind of flew by quickly just getting my feet wet. Our class was divided into 3 groups of 10 students, groups A, B and C. We had some amazing instructors, Les Clinton was the program head and in charge of institutional cooking , Siegfried Teichmann was in charge of the bakery and Waldemar Schrutek was in charge of fine dining, snack bar and classical cuisine.

My journey started in bakery department, our group was responsible for all the bread, buns and pastries and desserts for the daily cafeteria. The school was quite large being a trade collage with over 2000 students so the cafeteria was quite busy . I excelled in this department, with no problem getting all my tasks completed in a timely fashion to feed all the students daily. A typical day at school started from 7 am to 4 pm, we worked in the kitchen from 7am till 130 pm and then had theory classes from 2-4pm daily. The first third of the year, we did Bakery, Institutional Cooking ( Volume) and Snack Bar. After about 4 weeks i found myself in the top tier of my class. Mr Schrutek and Mr Tiechmann had a soft spot for me as a sponged knowledge that i still use today.

Waldemar Schrutek

2nd block of the year, we still worked in the bakery and did institutional cooking but we also did meat cutting. I believe each section was 6 weeks. I enjoyed working all areas , I enjoyed meat cutting, it wasn’t fun for some of the other students but i really found my groove in school . I was still working part time at Safeway about 20 hours per week, I approached HR and I was able to transfer into working part time at the Bakery at Safeway. This extra skill and training made working the the bake shop a breeze, I was producing at school like i would produce at work. This really gave me growth in my trade at an early stage

Block 3 is where thing got interesting, this i where we did our placement, one month in an institutional setting, the other month was in a hotel or restaurant. My Institution placement was at Eatons Cafeteria, I learned on volume and batch cooking, the quality was good for a sit down cafeteria menu. After my one month training I was offered a job, I declined it as I was still in school and working in the bakery for a better rate.

My hotel training was at the newest and largest hotel in Saskatoon call the Saskatoon Inn, I worked many departments but here is where I learned the underbelly of culinary life, the good the bad and the ugly. I worked with a Executive Chef who I wouldn’t want to be my mentor, he was a dick, treated his staff unfairly but he did not fuck with me. I just did my job and said yes chef, not going to mention names but some people will know who he was. The training was good, we did a lots of classic items, like turning vegetables, sauces, French cooking. After my 4 weeks of training , I was offered once again a job, I respectfully declined it.

Block 4, this is where the fun began, as student there was a pecking order on who was going to continue in the trade and who were not. we had a couple of competitions with menus, show pieces, cakes. I won a few of these competitions. We were in the final block of bakery, Institutional cooking and a new module called classical cuisine. I enjoyed this module as we did fine European Cuisine, Classical French, German and Italian Items. From Cordon Bleu, Schnitzel, Fresh Pasta, French Sauces etc.. I think this is where I really learned how to cook. We designed our menu and served a lunch for 11-1 pm 5 days a week. Complete with appetizers, soups entrees and desserts. I learned a lot from culinary school the past 11 month. We Finished School in July. My marks were in the high 90s, I received 2 scholarships and the baking award on my graduation. I believe my name is on a couple of trophies still in the case at SIAST aka Kelsey Institute.

First Culinary Competition

I was fortunate enough to have great teachers and mentors, it’s sad to see that all 3 has past away. I was fortunate enough to see all the gentlemen during my early career. As per the people I went to school with, I have no idea, where these people are today and what they are doing. All that I know that these 3 gentleman helped me to get where I am today.

Culinary Class 1982-1983 not sure how many are left in the industry.