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Comments and ideas for using Cook's as
a Teaching Aid:
To include your idea, email Connie Forbes - connie_forbes@bcpress.com.
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Magazine Subscription Sign-up. (click
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Career Insight
- Rebecca Hays, Associate Editor, Cook's Illustrated
I studied economics and French at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Conn., which led me to a job in New York City after I graduated. I worked on the equity derivatives trading floor of Societé Generale, a large French bank, as an assistant trader. I eventually passed the Series 7 exam, which licensed me to sell securities, and stayed at the job for five years, working on desks trading options, futures, stocks, and high-yield bonds.
While I loved my job, I felt ready for a change and spent six months thinking about a career change until I finally enrolled in cooking school. Cooking has been my number one hobby for my entire life. I quit my job and attended the Natural Gourmet Cookery School in Manhattan, a cooking school with a strong focus on vegetarianism, food as medicine, and nutrition, all of which have long been personal interests. After graduating from the Natural Gourmet, I completed an internship in the test kitchen at Saveur magazine. While at Saveur, I had an opportunity to learn about the publishing industry and became very interested. I never had the desire to work nights and weekends in a restaurant, preferring a desk job with part of my time spent cooking.
I left Saveur and spent a summer cooking at the Omega Institute, a holistic center in Rhinebeck, N.Y. I went on to work at the Women's Lunch Place, a daytime shelter in Boston for poor and homeless women. I managed the finances and spent a lot of time in the kitchen cooking for the guests. A friend who was building a Web site for Cook's Illustrated told me that the company was looking to hire, and he nicely passed along my resume. I have now been working at Cook's for almost four years. I started my career here writing content for the Web and now write for the magazine, develop recipes for cookbooks, assist in the production of the TV show, America's Test Kitchen, and manage some of the cookbook production.- Rebecca Hays - Any career insights or anything you'd do differently?
Don't think I'd do anything differently--
I guess the biggest insight and what I've learned is that once you figure out what you really want to do (which is extremely difficult) the jobs literally drop in your lap. This has happened to me over and over again in my career. The key is following your heart, and the rest is easy, it really is! - Rebecca Hays
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