Hello Everybody. I am Denizhan Dagdelen, creator of this blog. I am 23 for who would like to know and have been in food&beverage industry for 5 years now.Before, when I was a student I have been in the USA for a year at high school as an exchange student and then I came back for college with full athletic scholarship from swimming. But this was the part I fell in love with cooking so I dropped out and went back to where I came from.Istanbul,TurkeyThe most beautiful city in the entire planet. I worked at every single spot.Once, I was the guy who opens the restaurant in the morning,cleans the floors,places the tables and chairs, cleans the toilets and prepares breakfast for the cooks and servers. Then at some other places, I served beer and fries to drunkards until 5am. After I got my City&Guilds diplomas on both Pastry&Bakery and Cooking from MSA(Mutfak Sanatlari Akademisi) in Istanbul. I started working at the best hotels and fine dining restaurants in Istanbul. I worked in pastry department, sometimes with Michelin starred chefs, hot kitchen, cold kitchen, even in the office sometimes when Chefs' assistants were on vacation. As you see everything was going normally for a young cook who is on the way of his dreams to become a great chef.
How I Became A Flying Chef?
Last summer, I was working in the southern Turkey at a super lux boutique hotel where the richest people who we see on tv everyday come for vacation. I was working in the hot kitchen as griller. Air temperature outside is 40 degrees celcius and with the help of my grill my work place temperature was 60, almost like a sauna. But I love it, barbeque and grill have always been my favorite (mangal in Turkish). I love seeing chemical changes in meat. And I love its smell of course. Anyways for some reason***(There is a region in Turkey where most of the cooks come from since the Ottoman Empire. And I wasn't coming from there and I guess that was a little problem for the hot kitchen chef) I found myself in the snack kitchen preparing food for kids. Well I was still making the same money but I knew this way wouldn't end up with the Great Chef. So I quitted.
And a miracle happened. Five minutes after I finished my paperwork with the hotel. I got a text message from my culinary school. -English speaking cooks are needed!!!! I was really curious about this. Because none of the cooks in Turkey can speak English and even if they can, nobody needs a cook that can speak English. So I felt lucky. I thought if it was a good job that I could use my English finally, I couldn't be happier. I got a phone call two days later.They invited me to interview. I said this is it. Done. I got it. Because, never in my life, I got a refuse from a job interview and this wasn't going to be the first one. But wait a second, this time the job title was a little bit** different. 'FLYING CHEF'. What was that? I was very excited for the interview. The moment I got in the company. I was shocked. There were like 100people inside.May be not but at least 50. It was like Flying Chef occupation has been Turkey's national job for hundreds of years. How did you know about this? I saw familiar faces. How did you learn English in a couple months when you can not even speak Turkish. Anyways, interview was quite fun and I got the reply I was waiting for in twenty five days. I AM A FLYING CHEF.
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