Gourmet cooking is a growing trend the United States. Restaurants seem to be opening in every city, every day. There are thousands of gourmet cooking sites on the internet, millions of books line bookshelves, and thousands of culinary arts schools dedicate themselves to the subject of gourmet cooking.

It is in vogue to amaze your friends and family with culinary masterpieces. Gourmet cooking is an art for which chefs attend the finest culinary arts schools and work for years to perfect their cooking skills.

There are thousands of higher-learning institutions that offer a quick courses in gourmet cooking. Some professional chefs feel that these classes are nothing more than crash courses and that there is really nothing gourmet about them. They feel that they have paid their dues by attending years of college and paying thousands of dollars for tuition. They spent years of hard work perfecting their cooking skills. The chefs to do not believe that the art of gourmet cooking can be taught in a three-month crash course. They believe that by offering a gourmet-cooking courses, that the higher-learning institutions are just cashing in on the growing trend.

There are retail outlets dedicated solely to gourmet cooking. They claim to carry cooking utensils that will transform the everyday cook into a super gourmet. These outlets advertise that, with their products, the ordinary person can become an accomplished gourmet chef.

Gourmet cooking is much more than picking up a spoon and a pan. Gourmet chefs spent years of backbreaking work perfecting their art. When they serve a plate of food, it is a culinary masterpiece of which they can be proud. An accomplished chef is sought after by the finest restaurants, which are willing to pay top dollar for their skills. This is reflected in the ratings that the restaurants receive and also by word-of-mouth.

A restaurant is only as good as the food it serves. Gourmet magazines provide recipes, and shows on television show how easy it is to prepare these recipes. They sail through a half-an-hour show and the end result is a gourmet meal that is cooked to perfection.

Is it really that easy for the ordinary consumer to perform gourmet cooking tasks? Have the editors of those magazines and the chefs on the shows forgotten that everyday people do not find it as easy to perform the skills of gourmet cooking in their own kitchens? They make it look so easy to prepare. But remember, they have had years of guidance and training. The ordinary consumer, on the other hand, has to muddle through the task and find their answers through trial and error.

Thousands of households have to endure cooking fiascoes. In the end, the best piece of advice that a gourmet chef can give is, "Leave the gourmet cooking to the professionals."