Cooks' Books by Lisa Messinger

"Food Jobs: 150 Great Jobs for Culinary Students, Career Changers and Food Lovers" by Irena Chalmers (Beaufort, $19.95)

If you think that going to culinary school and becoming a chef is the only way to satisfy your craving to work in the food industry, Irena Chalmers would like to introduce you to a few food futurists, food historians, kitchen designers and grape advocates.

Perhaps like Jim Howard — a criminal defense trial lawyer, turned restaurant critic, turned grape advocate — a state organization promoting fruit will come calling with a desk nameplate for you. Howard, who plugs grapes to the media for the California Table Grape Commission, was recruited after gaining a reputation reviewing restaurants. He's just one of hundreds of well-fed workers profiled by award-winning food writer Irena Chalmers in her extensive reference guide that's also a compelling read.

The book is so interestingly written. Since it is chock-full of passionate voices of those who populate the culinary world, it should make can't-put-down reading for anyone who loves to eat, not just those who want to be a contestant on TV's "Top Chef" or "The Next Food Network Star."

Chalmers has written more than 40 cookbooks and food reference guides, including many others jam-packed with exhaustively researched information, like "The Great Food Almanac." Consider yourself lucky that she's your master of ceremonies in this book. She is not one of the many others who have written dry culinary guides where turned to dinner plate contents seem as if they would taste like cardboard.

"Food Jobs" is instead a memorable gourmet feast of facts and fun. Chalmers groups her chapters into Restaurants and Food Service; Retail Jobs; Art and Design; Publishing, Television, the Internet, Radio and All Things Media; Promotion and Publicity; History and Culture; Science and Technology; Farming; and Cooking Schools and Culinary Education. Listings include descriptions of specific jobs, tips for getting hired, profiles of those in the field and websites and books that make good follow-ups.

Her facts are illuminating. As encouragement in the Retail Jobs chapter, she writes, "The Panera Bread Co. opened its twelve hundredth retail bakery/cafe and racked up $2 million in annual sales per store. (By way of comparison, Starbucks produces $750,000 per store, Chipotle $1.4 million, McDonald's $1.85 million and Wendy's $1.3 million.)"

Virtually all of the folks Chalmers uses as examples and profiles have blue-chip backgrounds.

Jane L. Baker, who describes being a recipe developer and recipe tester, worked in the kitchens of Borden creating recipes before becoming a newspaper food editor. Now serving as the marketing director for the Cherry Marketing Institute, Baker supervises the creation of cherry recipes, for which she often hires freelance recipe developers.

This translates to a lot of interesting people describing fascinating elements of their careers. Paul Rozin, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, notes, "Freud chose to frame the clash between our biology and society in terms of the mastering and socialization of our sexual impulses. It seems to me that he would have had a stronger case with eating. Although both food and sex are biologically basic, the need for food is more frequent, more compelling, and frankly, more important in both daily life and in the evolution of animals and humans. The process of civilization must tame our desire to promptly consume anything that looks appetizing; we cannot grab an attractive morsel of food that is in someone else's possession, just as we cannot engage in sexual activity with any person who appeals to us."

The book is filled with everything from dream jobs (cruise ship lecturers and Internet food bloggers) to just rock-solid, stick-to-your-ribs employment opportunities — retirement home chefs and prison chefs, where "the total allowance to cover three meals a day in the federal penitentiary is $2.52".

When it comes to food, though, as gourmands know, virtually any recipe or occasion provides endless opportunities, like for hospital chefs so beloved their names appear on the menus, cooks who prepared the last meals for death row inmates or when Chalmers quotes Woody Allen about what could have been a thankless job.

"My grandfather had a wonderful funeral. It was held in a big hall with accordion players. On the buffet table there was a replica of the deceased rendered in chopped liver."

Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the author of seven food books, including "Mrs. Cubbison's Best Stuffing Cookbook" and "The Sourdough Bread Bowl Cookbook." She also writes the Creators News Service "After-Work Gourmet" column. To find out more about Lisa Messinger and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.