Years ago, I exchanged martial arts private lessons for cooking lessons from a student of mine who was a chef.
I would bike to his restaurant, meet him in the basement, and act as his apprentice for a few hours each week—cutting, caramelizing, mixing, mincing, simmering, and sautéing with his direction.
And on the flip side, I would meet him at the martial arts school, teach him one-on-one lessons in forms, self-defense, and weapons.
This continued weekly-ish for about 6 months.
Fast forward to 2026, and I recently started a subscription to a food + recipe delivery service. They deliver recipes and all the groceries you’ll need for those meals. All you have to do is follow the steps and voila! …Your meals are done within a reasonable timeframe (one that you can pre-select).
…I am learning more from this latter approach than I ever did doing private lessons from a professional chef.
And in retrospect, the big reasons why include: (1) He was preparing meals for 50+ people at a time—so the quantities, portions, pot ware used, etc., was significantly inflated from what I needed to be doing for my one-stomach-self; (2) He was giving me intuitive advice—things based on taste, not recipes… and my palette wasn’t nearly as trained as his; (3) The experience gap was too great—I was simply too much of a beginner to really digest everything he would say.
This is all to say, sometimes you don’t need to learn from the best in a field… in fact, it might serve you (and your wallet) better to learn from those who are just a few steps above where you want to be.