RECIPE FOR A NEW CAREER : 1 CUP COURAGE 14 OUNCES STAMINA A DASH OF CELEBRITY POWER A PINCH OF HUMOR MIX WELL AND SERVE.

Byline: David Greenberg Staff Writer

Having worked 15 years as a psychiatric social worker before founding the Westlake Culinary Institute, Phylis Vaccarelli knows first-hand why so many of her students turn to cooking in the middle of another career.

But even then, Vaccarelli warns, cooking as a profession is much more difficult than as a hobby - that whipping up a fancy dinner or luscious dessert now and then is entirely different than having to do it every night.

``If you don't have a passion for it, it's not a job for you,'' said Vaccarelli, whose institute enrolls some 75 students a years. ``It's not an easy job. You're required to work a lot of hours in a hot kitchen. You're on your feet so it takes a lot of stamina.''

But hundreds of students have made the commitment since the Westlake Culinary Institute was founded in 1988. With the motto, ``where recipes come to life,'' the institute prepares students for any and all high-end jobs in the food industry, which is experiencing tremendous growth.

Its alumni work at many of the Los Angeles area's finest restaurants, Vaccarelli said, including Spago, Chasen's, Granita and the Hotel Bel-Air.

Each course consists of one to six classes, occasionally taught by the world's most renowned chefs, including Julia Child, Wolfgang Puck, Jacques Pepin, Marcella Hazan, Ming Tsai and Emeril Lagasse.

``It makes the school very exciting for people to come to,'' Vaccarelli said. ``If you're going to have the best teachers and cookbook authors from all over the world, that does enhance the credibility and quality of the school. And it's the whole celebrity kind of thing. People like to hang out with celebrities.''

Vaccarelli grew up in New York City and New Jersey, graduating from Monmouth College in New Jersey with a psychology degree in 1967. Three years later, she earned a master's degree in social work from Florida State University.

She applied her skills at the county mental health department in Dallas and at Camarillo State Hospital for 14 years, but the daily grind of tending tomented ill patients took its toll.

``I was a little burned out,'' Vaccarelli said. ``I wanted to work in a field where I felt I could be more creative.''

She had been taking cooking lessons since 1977 and teaching classes out of her home since 1982. So in 1984, with $25,000 from savings and a loan, she purchased Let's Get Cookin', a Westlake Village cooking school that offered one or two classes a week.

She founded the institute in 1988, giving it a professional name that would look good on graduates' resumes. And her staff has grown from two to 15 part-time employees, along with 40 contracted chefs and cookbook authors, who give lessons on cooking hundreds of dishes originating from more than a dozen countries.

Additionally, Let's Get Cookin' offers single courses to more than 1,000 people annually who cook as a hobby.

``When you're reading a recipe in your cookbook, you can't use all your senses like you do in a cooking class,'' Vaccarelli said. ``(In class) you get to see, each step of the way, what's going on with the different techniques, what the food is supposed to look like in different stages, how it will be presented on the plate. You get to smell, taste and touch everything, because we pass everything around.''

One of the institute's recent success stories is Nydia Williams, who for years ran a hairdressing shop out of her Encino home and worked the last decade in a variety of jobs. Now a graduate of the Westlake Culinary Institute, the 55-year-old mother of two has been hired at a catering business.

``When you've got a bunch of nothing ingredients and you have to make something tasty out of it, it's a challenge,'' Williams said. ``The reward is at the end - people enjoy it. And when you do something new and it comes out good, it's a high.''

Vaccarelli said she is prone to staying up most of the night to cook for a dinner party, even when she has taught classes all day.

Her crowning achievement came two years ago, when she hosted a dinner party for Child, serving osso buco, an Italian dish of braised veal shank complemented with vegetables.

A shrimp appetizer preceded the main course, which was followed by a Grand Marnier souffle for dessert.

``I didn't look at it as anything intimidating,'' Vaccarelli said. ``If she's like me, she likes to have other people cook for her. I felt like I could do that. I know I'm a good cook.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo: (1 -- color in Business section only) Formerly a psychiatric social worker, Phylis Vaccarelli founded the Westlake Culinary Institute in 1988.

Eric Grigorian/Special to the Daily News

(2 -- color) no caption (frying pan with vegetables)