"What better profession? We feed people. We nurture them. We provide a real service. We?re the salt of the earth. We may be the backstairs help but we do something useful, and, once in a while, transcendent and inspiring."

?Anthony Bourdain, chef, author and host, ?No Reservations?

Cooking skills are a life insurance policy of sorts. Learn how to cook, and not only can you feed yourself and your family, you can secure work for the rest of your life, wherever you travel or decide to live, home or abroad. The cuisines may vary, but cooking is a universal language.

Food satisfies hunger, one of our basic primal needs, nourishes and provides us with the energy we use to live, is the stuff of our daily meals, and the starting point around which we plan milestones?birthdays, holidays, dates, weddings, bar mitzvahs, confirmations, anniversaries, wakes. For many of these events, though, we don?t cook?we call a caterer, or make a reservation at a restaurant. We need a chef.

Glamour and reality

Our national interest (or is it an obsession?) with food and cooking has been fueled by the proliferation of magazines, cooking shows, interviews with and articles about celebrity chefs, their restaurants, and cookbooks. The result is promising?a renewed interest in cooking and culinary careers?but leads to a perception that is somewhat inaccurate. A career as a chef is not always glamorous. It does not automatically lead to fame, fortune, a cooking show and a line of cookware.

The reality of the culinary world is that the path towards a well-compensated position as an executive chef is a long, hard, uphill climb. Paying your dues in the restaurant world is a marathon, not a sprint. You may feel at times that you are running those 26.2 miles every single day, and not getting paid very much for your efforts. Chef Patti Jackson, of Centovini and I Trulli in Manhattan, advises that anyone considering a culinary career or planning on attending culinary school should get some serious restaurant experience under their belt first. And the Culinary Institute of America requires six months of restaurant experience as a prerequisite to admittance.

Lots of options

The culinary world encompasses a wide range of jobs and careers, with numerous pathways, options and open arms, especially for those with physical and psychological stamina, and enough flexibility to allow you to reach whatever goal you may have in mind. All of those options can also be confusing. Part of finding your place in the culinary world involves the process of identifying where your skills, talent and personality fits, in what sort of restaurant or establishment. A high-energy chef may thrive on late night hustle-bustle, but baking would be a better choice for a quiet self- starter who enjoys arriving at dawn and beginning the work day in solitude, with only flour and baker?s racks for company. Traditionally, many chefs attend culinary school, but some of our top chefs arrived at their positions after having started out, literally, at the bottom, as prep cooks, and working their way up through the ranks of the restaurant food chain. Chef Anna Klinger, now the co-owner of Brooklyn?s Al Di La, walked into a restaurant in San Francisco with no experience, asked for a job and offered to work for free. Once she was able to produce Madeleines and tuiles every morning, she started to receive a paycheck. She stayed for four years, worked through every station at La Folie (another famed San Francisco establishment) and by the time she left, was skilled enough to be the sous chef.