One of the problems cooking in Portland is how deep the competitive pool is. Just taking the culinary schools you have AI, WCI, and OCI. From there you have groups of three hundred per program times two to three for each separate program looking for a free externship close by. Just from that there is a pool of about 2500 hundred people who are asking to work for free in most cases. Add on top all the smaller schools and you can easily add another 2000 people on top of that.

So in Portland there is a minimum of four thousand people every six months looking for experience and are able to not be paid for that time versus actually hiring people. Because after those externship times are done they enter another pool constantly growing of people who can cook to order but nowhere for them to do so. True, after some externships some people will be offered work no doubt.

It’s not like I’m new in a kitchen myself. I have done a large bit and a short amount of time and nearly have a decade of experience around the pacific northwest all before my twenty-fifth birthday. It is just I love to cook. I love to make food because food is something all cultures around the world had. Everyone had to eat and through food you can learn a lot about the past as well as the future.
There just seems to be so much wrong with what I love that sometimes I ask is it worth it. It is of course ( it always is).

Long story short. In food, in portland we should either get ready to change with the times or be ready to be passed by it.

If you agree or disagree let me know. I would love to hear your opinion. If you think i need to take another cup of coffee before typing because I may be out of my mind then go ahead and message me too 🙂 Happy holidays.