They cooked up a new career

So, you like to eat, but you hate to cook. And now with the economic downturn, you can no longer eat out every night. What to do, what to do? For three local men, career changes have ensured that the belt they tighten will not be the one around their waists.

Chef Christopher Allen was always an amateur cook. He earned a degree in journalism but ended up working in the parking management industry. “I woke up one day and thought: I need to change my life,” he recalled.

Living in Newport Beach in 2001, Allen thought about moving to Hawaii but then reconsidered. He thought, “I like to cook. I would like to be great cook, so I am going to try for this.”

“This” was the California School for Culinary Arts in Pasadena. After taking a tour of the facility, he signed up on the spot to take classes. While there, he found he had a knack for teaching when he assisted in a public cooking class. The student, who didn’t know how to even properly cut a carrot, was “extremely grateful and touched that I would take the time with her,” he said.

Allen opened his own catering business in his second year at the culinary school, but in 2005 he underwent another career change: He started a cooking camp for kids during the summer. The camp finished its third year with over 500 students having attended the last 10-week session. “The kids have no preconceived ideas as adults do, so they are very easy to teach,” Allen said of his students. “Some of these kids have no confidence or no skills, but here they discover that they can do something. They end up cooking for their parents. I love doing this.”

While developing his cooking camp, Allen took two terms off from teaching at the Culinary Arts School. While he was gone, the school recognized his innate abilities to teach young people; he now teaches there full time in between his cooking camp. At the school, he teaches at the introductory, level 1 for the first six weeks of the Culinary Arts Program and is also an instructor for Culinary Arts 2, for the second six weeks.

“I love the second six weeks because the students are not so green,” Allen said with a grin. He arrives at the school at 5 a.m. then leaves at 11 a.m. to plan the kids camp, marketing and planning for the school and any other activities he takes part in. “I have a very full and exciting day,” he said.

Allen is married and, though he has no children of his own, he is delighted to have eight grandchildren that he inherited in his marriage. He lives in La Crescenta and is indeed “a very happy man in my career and my life.”

It’s Chef Roger Frey who mans the pots and pans at Frank’s Famous Kitchen and Bakery on the Glendale/Montrose border. He, with his wife Tracy, bought the kitchen in 2004 when he was a student at the Culinary Arts School. While there, he started a catering business and bought all his rolls from Frank’s; when the opportunity came up to buy the place, Frey grabbed it.

Frey, a lifelong La Crescenta resident, decided to become a chef when his job in the printing industry, which he had gotten directly out of high school, faded with the advances in home printing.

Out of work, the Employment Development Department told him he needed to be retrained and approved his admission to the Culinary Arts School. Frey is now an accomplished chef, a career that he loves.

“My grandfather was a chef and I always thought I would like to be a chef,” Frey said. “The layoff offered this wonderful opportunity.”

He has been teaching at the school for over two years. “It is like a nice big family here and the students are very protected,” he said. “When they go out on their own, it’s very hard. I try to keep in touch and give support and mentoring to as many as I can. They all have my e-mail and I will help wherever I can.”

Frey teaches the afternoon sessions at the Culinary Arts School from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and can be found at Frank’s most of the rest of the time.

Chef Anis Toumi found his calling early in his career. In his native Tunisia, he started out with his father who always wanted to work in the hospitality industry; instead, the elder Toumi became the Foreign Minister of Affairs for Tunisia.

Recognizing his love of cooking, Chef Toumi’s father suggested he become a chef. Toumi attended two years of culinary school and externed with a five star hotel, the Abou Nawas chain, straight out of school.

After four years, he worked at Tunis Air catering, which led him to Los Angeles where he did menu planning for Luftansa, Air France and Iberian Airlines.

Los Angeles was a great fit for the multi-lingual chef who is fluent in English, German, Arabic and French.

Toumi worked at Good Earth Restaurant in Northridge, then a restaurant in Bel Air.

When the owner sold the restaurant, he came to the California Culinary Institute where he has taught for six years.

“I teach all the classes,” he explained. “If I only teach the same class over and over, I get bored. I get really excited when I teach a new class.

“We try to keep a balanced education at the school and sometimes you have to be tough in order to guide the young students. Some take it the wrong way, but I am just trying to help them.”

His training and focus has helped his students in unexpected ways.

“Some of our students went on to the television show ‘Top Chef’ and they did really well. Some just put aside their education and go on to other things,” Toumi said with a shrug.

“We all try to teach them organization, good skills and workmanship,” he added. “It is 40% luck and 60% work to make it in your field.”

Toumi does most of the cooking at home in Sunland and said that Mexican food was a really new experience for him, since there was no such thing in Tunisia.

“It took a long time to adjust to the flavors,” he said, but it’s just one more thing that he said he loves about being here.