The old saying goes “easy as pie”, so why are so many of us reluctant to try baking our own? Most of us just don’t have the time to spend hours shopping for ingredients, making the pastry from scratch and preparing the filling, especially during the holidays.

Some recognized brand names are making it easy. You can now get, for example, two lines of frozen, unbaked pies – Oven Fresh and the Signature Selections by Sara Lee – that are ready to pop into the oven. Here are some additional hints from Sara Lee for baking all kinds of pies:

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Ready to stand on your feet up to 70 hours a week in 95-degree plus heat? Up to working with all types of people in a sometimes-frantic atmosphere and at an always-hectic pace? Prepared to wait years before you reach the top of your profession? If you can answer “yes” to these questions, you are ready to take your first step toward becoming a gatekeeper in Hades, er, I mean, a professional chef!

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Chef’s wages vary considerably. Wolfgang Puck’s 12 restaurants brought in $12.2 million last year, The Food Channel’s Emeril Lagasse made $7 million, and the “enfant terrible of French cooking” Jean-Georges Vongerichten went home with $3 million.

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There are a number of specializations you can go into as a chef. There are no rules that say you have to be the executive or sous chef, chronically loaded down with an incredible amount of responsibility. If you are one of those creative cooks who’d rather be a little lower down the ladder but deal with a lot less stress, you can still keep your finger in the pie (so to speak) with one of the following culinary cooking specialties:

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As in the yet-to-be famous, (un)known saying, “You can take the chef out of the cook, but you can’t take the cook out of the chef.” In other words, being a cook is not synonymous with being a chef. A chef is a cook, but a cook is not necessarily a chef.

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Some chef positions warrant more than just a casual, glancing interest. Here are a few unusual positions chefs hold that exemplify what is possible out there in the Big Wide World for those inspired by the culinary arts:

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Everyone knows that the very most important tools to a chef are knives. Forget about the cheap, disposable paring knives used by the dozens by restaurant line servers. An executive chef leans more toward the likes of the Denka No Hoto chef knives that run about $430 for a handmade 13″ piece of cutlery touted as “among the finest in the world.” Some chefs get so possessive of their knives, they refuse to allow anyone else to clean them other than themselves, fearing the sought-after, razor-like edge may be marred or damaged.

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Becoming a freelance chef does not mean that just knowing how to cook automatically qualifies you to go into someone’s home and cook for them. Obtaining the necessary industry (yes, it is an industry!) knowledge through a comprehensive training program puts you way ahead of the game. Knowing how to market yourself as well as how to go about everyday business functions like accounting, price-setting, scheduling, menu-planning, customer relations, and more can very well dictate whether or not your freelance chef business succeeds or fails.

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Just like any other profession, whether or not being a chef is a career or a job depends largely on you. Of course, if your chef-dom is merely a job for you, don’t be surprised if it doesn’t take long to burn out. Fifty to 70-hour work weeks, high stress, and the creative brain drain all take their toll fairly early on those not entirely dedicated to their paycheck-maker.

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Culinary schools give aspiring chefs their best shot at making it to the big time, especially those accredited by the American Culinary Federation. Just like any other profession, many of the better hospitality establishments base their hiring practices not only upon the length of education the applicant provides, but also where that education was obtained. Tuition runs the gamut from relatively inexpensive courses offered by local community colleges all the way to the Culinary Institute of America’s breathtaking $40,000 price tag. And what doesn’t tuition cover? Oh, just uniforms, textbooks, cutlery, and other necessary kitchen equipment.

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