Share a part of the life of our consultants by discovering their hobbies! This month, let's talk about Armand Scatola (d²X Paris) and his passion for cooking and his vocational qualification in catering.

What is your double life?

As a culinary enthusiast, I challenged myself at the end of 2019 to complete a vocational training certificate in catering.

When and how did you start?

While researching schools for my son, I discovered that there were online courses to obtain the vocational training certificate (CAP). After gathering some information, I decided to enroll in an online training, in order to take the exam in June 2021. In November 2019, I started my training and cooked at home in the evenings and on weekends.

What do you like about this passion?

I think it was my grandmother (Italian mamma !) who passed on her passion to me. At a very young age, I was already drawn to the pleasure of cooking. At that time I was more present in front of my plate than behind the stove, but always keeping an eye on the cooking stages.

At the age of 16, I lost my mother and I quickly took over the cooking. From that moment on, I started to cook and discovered the pleasures it brought: the discovery of products, the satisfaction of completing a recipe, ... and above all the pleasure of pleasing people!

The spotlight put on this profession, especially through cooking shows, made this passion grow in me and I wanted to go further in the practice by learning the basic techniques of cooking.

And in your daily life, how did your training fit in?

During my training, I studied the theoretical part on weekdays in the evening and I practiced on weekends. I cooked the different recipes presented in the framework of my training, allowing me to acquire the different techniques. This training lasted, for me, 18 months with regular breaks. It can be done in 6 months but I wanted to take my time to discover different Chefs and put into practice the recipes they offered on the web.

In June 2021, I ended up in the kitchen of a professional high school (in Rambouillet, France) to take my exam (theory and practice). One month later, the results came back: "Jury's decision: APPROVED".

Challenge achieved, I am very proud to have completed it!

Have you acquired skills that you use in your professional life?

I haven't had the opportunity to work in a restaurant kitchen team, but there are genuine similarities with being a project manager when it comes to organization and planning.

The main difference is that in the kitchen, you can't delay the "shipping date" of the dishes 😉

Thank you Armand for your answering our questions, and congratulations!