Frequently Asked Questions
What kind of work will The Natural Chef training prepare me for?
This is a great question to reflect on whether a culinary artist’s skills and knowledge will be marketable.
The Natural Cook training begins by organizing the student’s mind and kitchen. We then step carefully and consciously into learning techniques to access and implement the student’s intuition, and the nuances and subtleties of cooking without recipes.
A successful graduate will have a level of mastery cooking whole, plant-based ingredients. Learning the structure in an artist’s training based on the creative process, you will be pushed to go deeper into how you organize and express dishes for any kind of diet.
Can I work in a restaurant?
We have been training people continuously for over 30 years. Some choose to work in a restaurant and others choose to create their own. There are many styles of commercial food service venues from food truck to hospitals. You will be taught how to cook and design menus for intimate and large groups. We usually recommend graduates identify and reach out to established businesses they admire to “learn” the rhythm of different kinds of “service.”
Your diploma from The School of Natural Cookery along with a letter of recommendation offers valuable confirmation of your accomplishments.
Private coaching from our successful graduates is also available.
What are graduates doing?
Graduates lean toward private/personal cheffing, teaching, designing recipes for magazines such as “Fine Cooking”, “VegeNews”, “Dietitian’s Journal” and others; some gravitate to blogging, product development for the packaged food industry, and building their own business based on their passion. Other graduates are nutritional consultants and use their training to design menus for clients. Another business opportunity is available in a leadership role as an advocate for healthcare.
The Natural Cook training becomes a thread in the tapestry of your life. It will strengthen the courage in all aspects of who you are. If you are an athlete, coach, artist, musician, or person healing an illness, it will merge your identity into a marketable skill or service.
Many students like to earn the credentials from the School of Natural Cookery even if they have no clear professional goals upon entering the training.
The advantage to the Natural Chef training is the support from the platform, staff and the accountability a student has to move through a massive amount of experience and information.
The most powerful tool you will have from this training is the ability to adapt to all situations.
The goal is to use this training as a jumping off place to find the industry format that brings most of you and your interests together.
As an expert in plant-based ingredients from the “whole food ” the source, you will understand enough on how to :
- set up a kitchen
- design recipes and troubleshoot for product development
- plan menues
- invent dishes for recipe blog or book or magazine
- food product development, writing – blogs and books
- work in or create your own food service: restaurant, cafe, food – truck
- private chef
- teaching
Make sure you have your questions answered either through email or private meeting.
Apply for the Natural Chef – Certificate/Diploma
Schedule interview
Receive acceptance letter
Block out your study time and dates on your personal calendar
Complete enrollment agreement
Prepare your kitchen – receive workbook, textbook, knife, ingredient & tool kit
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Natural Chef training with a single payment discount $530
Natural Chef applicants in the health care/health coaching industry may also qualify for an additional $500 discount
SNC scholarship – Variable up to $3000 partial scholarship for The Natural Chef – training as needed according to application.
Request application letter
State of Colorado residents, Wyoming residents, can apply for workforce grants/scholarship through their local county workforce office
United States residents can inquire with their local workforce office. Identify the person in charge of financial support for vocational training opportunities. Contact us with their name and contact information and we will full-fill the application process to be a “supplier” in your area. This takes some tenacity and effort for an applicant. Let us know where you are in your process. We will do everything we can.
Veterans – When the veterans administration allows online learning, we will qualify for your payments from the VA. But we have run into conflict with them in the past – pre Covid-19. Please keep asking your office to approve our approved vocational school to use the funds for your education. We will go through the application we need to with the VA. So, please let us know your progress and we will do everything we can.
Independent Study programs have no discounts or scholarships. We have added material and better design and lowered the price.
The Natural Chef training offers opportunity for discounts and scholarships
You can see the comparison between the programs and options in the chart below, along with the cost of tuition for both programs
If you have technical issues, please send a detailed message to support@naturalcookery.com. The support team will review your issue in get back to you within 24 hours. For urgent issues connecting to one of the web meetings, please notify the instructor facilitating the class. The instructor will do some basic troubleshooting of the issue and contact the support team directly if help is required.
There is additional technical information located in the resource library: Preparing for the Course e-book located in the online classroom.
We are teaching a thought process with which to observe good cooking and not good cooking. The language we use to format the process of building dishes without a recipe, fixing dishes that are “off”, inventing dishes that have never been experienced before, becomes the structure for interaction with teachers, other students sharing, and with one’s self during the creative process.
The training classroom has over 250 videos for students to be in an up-close classroom. Each video is one or two single points of information technically important for each lesson. It is recommended to store notes from these presentations in the workbook, and then take the workbook with detailed notes into the kitchen to practice. From your notes you will invent a dish and learn to observe the transformation of the ingredients.
Students study with following interactive tools embedded into our university level online classroom:
- textbook
- workbook
- videos
- pre-recorded live-virtual group meetings
- interactive forums
- grades and comments from teachers on each assignment
- shared folders of classmate’s homework submissions
- quiz
- learn to take high level photos of your work
- submit photos of your homework with an interactive template that trains you to think in a language without relying on recipes
The Natural Chef training is organized as a mentorship with a teacher or as a group of up to 6-7 students that meet weekly.
The Independent Study students have the option to join the Tuesday Talk webinar format to listen to instructors who respond to group questions through a chat format
The group of students in each training have the option to connect with each other in a variety of customary virtual ways.
The language we use in the training is an opportunity to share not just communication but a unique way to unravel problems and curiosities in cooking in addition to sharing sketches of dishes you have made. Classmates can evolve to business partners because you get to know them and what they can really do. Classmates become life-long friends. It’s really up to you.
Technology will allow us all to share out kitchens and dishes we make during workshop/labs. It is a unique bonding.
If you are looking for a certificate, you will be in the Natural Chef – Certificate/Diploma training.
Graduates with an 85% or higher GPA will earn a Certificate/Diploma.
If you are in the Independent Study training and successfully complete all the topics through the Core Essentials + Added Topics OR the Complete, you will receive a Letter of Completion.
We no longer require Certificate/Diploma students to attend an onsite workshop to complete their training.
The School of Natural Cookery does not offer a formal placement service.
However, we often receive requests for graduates and provide information about opportunities. If you are interested in hearing about them, you will know about the opportunities in our Alumni Forum.
We also try to match graduates with opportunities as they come into the school.
Doctors, nutritionists, and health coaches automatically receive a discount. Independent study $125 Natural Chef $500
The Natural Cook training is known to be the missing link between what you are wanting your clients to achieve with their food choices and HOW to actually do that. It is premised on your goal to support your client.
Doctors, nutritionists, and health coaches automatically receive a discount. Independent study $125 Natural Chef $500
Schedule a meeting to see if you would like to recommend our program to your clients and see the benefits for you.
Yes, we do have a training to create a Certification as A Natural Cook teacher. They are invited to participate following their success in the Chef Training
The cost of becoming a Certified, Natural Cook® teacher is paid during the (paid) apprenticeship / teacher training that follows graduation of the Natural Chef program.
Teacher trainees are asked to study as an observer and a Teaching Assistant and then to run their own full training supported and observed by master teachers.
Qualified teacher candidates are invited into a 14 – 18 month commitment which turns into a valuable resource for SNC to hire teachers.
Schedule a meeting to find out more.
We ask anyone wanting to teach at SNC to supply us with a topic content and background on their unique qualification to deliver the information.
You will want to look at your life’s commitments and time available to study. If your goal is to have The School of Natural Cookery, certificate/diploma, to begin or enhance a profession with plant-based expertise, then the Natural Chef is for you.
- The Independent Study format is a great way to study without the pressure of meeting assignment submissions weekly. You still have access to an instructor in live, virtual, meetings online. Fifty percent of your tuition paid for this course may be applied the Natural Chef Certificate.
- The Natural Chef training is approved by the State of Colorado Department of Higher Education as a Private Vocational School program. It is experiential and highly accountable commitment with mentor / teachers over 9 months.
- Schedule a virtual meeting with an instructor after you read the catalog
We are not offering on-site workshops at this time.
Our studios are near Boulder, Colorado and near Lisbon, Portugal.
I have work commitments. Can I still be successful in taking the Natural Chef – certificate/diploma?
People do work and fit this program into their daily / weekly life.
A minimum of 25 hours depending on the students ability to manage their time and integrate the information.
Often people are misled in thinking that an online training is more lenient than a show-up in a classroom format. While it is true, the study hours are flexible to fit into anyone’s schedule who is busy with work and family, and the cooking assignments can be used for your meals, it is a university level commitment to submitting homework on-time, commitment to attending the weekly web meeting time, blocking out days and half days for workshop/lab and communication with your instructor.
What does this program cost?
Application fee: $50 Non refundable
Material fees: $1,500 Non refundable
Tuition: $10,930 (refund policy in catalog)
Discounts:
Early enrollment – $1000
Single payment $ 530
Other cost in addition to tuition?
There are costs of setting up and maintaining your kitchen. The catalog outlines equipment required for a minimal kitchen.
Ingredients are usually in your weekly food budget. The training teaches NO WASTE. The materials we send you will get you started with unusual and interesting ingredients that are vey high quality. You may purchase your own source and amounts to organize your kitchen.
Is financing available?
Yes. You may begin with $1500 down and agree to monthly bank payments.
We do not offer Sally Mae or other government financing programs.
Scholarships
Up to $3,000 in scholarships available. Please request the scholarship letter with your initial application. You will apply with a letter explaining your financial situation and why you are asking for a scholarship. Plus documents, like that can validate your financial position.
I have a full-time job and a family.
Is this the right time for me to commit to a 9 month training?
You ask a great question. Let me give you some information and ideas to answer this question. If you are cooking for people at least three times a week, your assignments can easily be worked into your schedule.
An average weekly workflow goes like this:
We recommend you find a rhythm in the week to study, shop, cook, upload assignments, and preview the topics in the upcoming lesson.
1- 2 hours to study and take notes on the topics of the week. This should be done in a quiet place with access to high speed internet, but not a kitchen.
2 – 4 hours to cook the assignments
1 – 2 hours to upload assignments
1 – 1.5 hours for weekly meetings with mentors and classmates online
Lab session preparation and workflow goes like this:
You will need to arrange your life to fit the scheduled days and times for live, lab sessions. During the enrollment process you will know the exact schedule.
2 – six hour lab sessions: scheduled dates and time in the first month and the last month.
4 – three hour lab sessions: 2.5 hours in the kitchen plus .5 hour in classroom
Chefs are managers. They manage multiple experiences inside and out. The Natural Chef – diploma program includes physical, mental and emotional strategies to support student’s skills.
If you prefer to train without these pressures, the Independent Study program is excellent way to study the material The Natural Cook training.
Communication with the teacher is key, including about how you are managing your schedule. Please review in the catalog options and policies for unforeseen circumstances that might interfere with you completing the training.
