HUNGRY FOR A CAREER CHANGE, THEY SET COURSE FOR CULINARY DEGREE.

Byline: Suzanne Kapner The New York Times

As a foreign equity trader at a Wall Street firm, Laurie Bloom often worked until 4 a.m. in the international markets. Today, as an apprentice at the Ryland Inn, an acclaimed restaurant in Whitehouse, N.J., she is learning how to cut onions.

After working as the director of engineering for the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, Joe Mullady attends cooking classes at night at the New York Restaurant School in Manhattan. His goal is to open a bed and breakfast with his son, Daniel, 21, who is also a student there.

Bloom and Mullady are among the growing number of people who are trading the corporate world for the kitchen. They seek creative fulfillment, satisfaction in their work, greater mobility and, if they start their own businesses, control over their lives. All would rather cook or work with food than do anything else.

Most make the switch at considerable financial and personal sacrifice. They either dip into savings, take out student loans or live off a spouse's income for the time it takes to earn a culinary degree and find a job.

And jobs are plentiful. In the next 10 years, restaurants and hotels will need an additional 500,000 chefs, cooks and other kitchen workers - an increase of 16 percent over current needs, according to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

``Each year we list 8,000 jobs,'' said Douglas Zander, the dean of enrollment and planning for the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. ``We only have a student population of 2,000. That's four times as many jobs as students.''

The first job often means long hours, grueling labor and low pay. Still, those who have made the switch say working 60 hours a week for $8 an hour is worth the sacrifice if they can own their own business or advance through the ranks of the kitchen.

``People are tired of accommodating themselves to the traditional workplace,'' said Paula Rayman, an economist at Harvard University. ``They may take a passionate hobby like cooking and turn it into a career.''

Until recently, cooking was hardly considered a serious career move. Wayne Nish, the chef and owner of March on the East Side of Manhattan, remembers working as a cook while studying architecture at Cornell University in the 1970s.

``The only high-end restaurants I knew were French, and they didn't hire Americans,'' he said. Most cooks at the time fit the hash-slinger stereotype, he said, adding, ``I couldn't imagine going into a career like that.'' He was a printer for five years until he could no longer resist the lure of the kitchen and enrolled in the New York Restaurant School in 1982.

During the 1980s, food took a place somewhere between fashion and entertainment, spawning its own celebrities such as chefs Wolfgang Puck and Paul Prudhomme. Culinary studies began to be taken seriously.

``The power of advertising didn't hurt,'' said Douglas Friedman, who quit a 14-year career in the chorus of Broadway musicals and used his savings to attend the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan. Now in his first job, he is an assistant chef at Petrossian at $300 a week.

``They do a very good campaign,'' he said of the school's ads, which feature such well-known chefs as Andre Soltner, who teaches there.

But it doesn't take long for an aspiring cook to learn that the kitchen is anything but glamorous.

``It's a real eye-opener,'' said Jude Quintiere, a former television producer who took out a home equity loan to study at the French Culinary Institute in 1991. He went on to study pastry at Peter Kump's New York Cooking School, and then started a bakery, which he later sold.

His annual salary at first was about two-thirds the $52,000 he made in television, and he paid $500 a month in student loans. He and his wife, a doctor, depended on her salary for living expenses. Quintiere now earns $40,000 a year as head pastry chef at Firebird, a new restaurant in midtown.

Anne Rosenzweig was an anthropologist before she became a chef and opened Arcadia and the Lobster Club in Manhattan. Learning about food in other cultures sparked her interest, and led to apprenticeships in several New York kitchens. She agrees that the glamour factor is overrated.

``When it's 100 degrees in the summer and the air conditioning in the kitchen blows and the waiter spills a bottle of wine on a customer, it sure would be nice to be out in the bush in Kenya doing field research,'' she said. ``But I

still feel it's one of the great all-time jobs. You get a chance to remake yourself every day. You can try new things, you're not limited, and you have the instant gratification from the customer. How many people have a job like that?''

If culinary school enrollment is any indication, more people want jobs with those criteria and are willing to pay thousands of dollars to attend prominent schools in the hope that it will lead to the kitchen of a notable chef.

Geoffrey Silagy, who left his job as a foreign correspondent for Australian radio, paid $18,000 for a nine-month certificate in culinary arts from the French Culinary Institute. A two-year culinary arts degree at a state school would have cost him $16,000.

``What you pay for is their network,'' he said, which he credits for placing him at Verbena, in the Gramercy Park area, as an unpaid apprentice.

Newcomers to the kitchen often work for nothing for a few months to gain experience with prominent chefs, said Molly Chang, the school's director of marketing. From there, they often become prep cooks, working for an hourly wage. Low-level chef positions pay about $22,000, and with a few years of experience, sous-chefs can earn $35,000 to $70,000. Executive chefs have earning potential in excess of $80,000.

``I'm willing to suffer for a few years to have my own place,'' said Silagy, who relies on his wife's salary and health benefits.

He was among 325 graduates this year, three-quarters of whom were embarking on a second career, said Sarah Cirrincione, the director of admissions at the French Culinary Institute.

At the New York Restaurant School, about 60 percent of the new students are switching careers, compared with about 40 percent four years ago, said Stephen Tave, director of admissions. They will pay $15,000 for a nine-month certificate in culinary arts, or $10,000 for a pastry arts certificate. Students who continue for another seven months can earn an associate of occupational studies degree, for a total of $25,000.

The Culinary Institute of America added a four-year program to its two-year degree in 1994, in response to the demand for chefs skilled in management and accounting. About 1,200 students enroll each year and pay $24,000 for a two-year program in culinary or pastry arts. About 150 go on to enroll in the four-year program.

Culinary Institute programs are full time, which can require students to give up jobs, take out loans and, in many cases, leave friends and family to move into dormitories. It's that type of commitment that often enables career changers to excel in their new field.

``The shining stars, the ones who got the highest grades and go onto successful careers, are often career changers,'' said Zander, the Culinary Institute dean. ``They're serious about their purpose. They have to give up something to come here.''

After 12 years in the computer business, Mark Metcalfe is finishing a two-year degree at the Culinary Institute, but has commuted almost every weekend to Virginia, where his wife lives. He could have gone to a less expensive school in Virginia, but he was attracted to the Culinary Institute's facilities, which include 36 kitchens, and its 50-year-old reputation.

``Leaving my wife was the hardest part about the whole thing,'' he said. ``But we talked about it for six months first.''

Some chefs, like Rosenzweig, forgo classes and head directly to the kitchen. Bloom, who works as an unpaid apprentice at the Ryland Inn, taught herself to cook and then convinced Craig Shelton, the Ryland chef, that she was proficient enough to be of use in the kitchen.

But it is difficult to land apprenticeships without some formal training. ``Chefs want people who've gone to cooking school and have some experience,'' Friedman said. ``Otherwise, you're worthless to them. How much time can they spend teaching you?''

But after cashing in 401(k)'s or dipping into savings, many career changers find that a smaller salary is only one adjustment in their lives. After coming close to the apex of their first career, it can be hard to adjust to life at the bottom.

Bloom said that as a trader, her word was law. ``Now, if I say something in the kitchen, I'm nobody,'' she said. ``You think cutting an onion is a basic thing. There are 100 ways you could cut it.''