I'm not a cook, but I have been in charge of cooks. Yours is a common dilemma. Altough there are master chefs who make a lot of money (far more than any cook in the CF ever will), they are few and far between and most cooks on civvy street work very long hours for very little money and not much thanks. On the other hand, military cooks are much appreciated and valued (although sometimes you may feel otherwise). A good meal can make a world of difference in the morale of folks who are working under crappy conditions and a long way from home. You will also get paid reasonably well and have a pension, vacation and medical/dental benefits as well. Then there are the opportunities to travel to exotic locations... ;D However, to answer some of your questions:
To the best of my knowledge, if you come in as a "skilled applicant," you can receive credit for previous training, which may effect your promotion to corporal (or leading seaman in the Navy). Check with your recruiting centre for up to date information on that. If you are pursuing further education that is directly related to your military occupation, there is reimbursement available. Normally, reimbursement for a course is only issued once you have successfully completed it (i.e. we don't pay your tuition and then watch you fail the course). We don't generally reimburse you for training completed before you joined. Reimbursement is also available in some cases for education that is not directly related to your occupation, but that's a different question than the one you asked. It is also possible that some of your CF training will cover the things you're missing, in which case you might not have to pay anything. There of plenty of red seal chefs in the CF who have gotten there credentials while serving. Once you're in the CF, the Base Personnel Section Officer manages reimbursement for outside education programs at the local level. Your training authority manages all in-service coursing.
I'm not sure what pay scale you were looking at or where in the scale you were looking, but yes, you get paid while undergoing training. After you are enrolled (i.e. raise your hand and repeat after me...), there may be a brief period of Leave Without Pay before you start basic training, but once you report for that, you get paid from there on.
We do all kinds of cooking in house. Although we do make use of pre-packaged items, we also do a lot from scratch. We have had an on-again, off-again approach to butchering and I'm not sure where we are with that right now, but we do virtually everything else and everywhere else! As a cook you can find yourself working in a huge kitchen on a static base, doing the same thing in a much smaller galley in a ship (where everything moves - sometimes violently), or in a field kitchen (essentially a trailer) in the middle of knowhere. CF cooks cook for hundreds, if not thousands, daily and take great pride in the quality of the food they produce and it is frankly some of the best military cuisine in the world. Our allies love to eat with us. I've never seen a powdered egg in a CF kitchen and have enjoyed fresh baked bread, pastries and cakes both in the field and in the middle of the ocean (although cakes at sea can sometimes be a little lop-sided :nod
We do formal dinners all the time and all CF cooks are expected to take part. There are some specialty jobs (e.g. VIP flight crews), but candidates for these come from the mainstream and will return to the mainstream after they've finished that posting. Don't worry too much about the enrolement standards for cooks. Yes, they're on the lower end, but once you're in, you will see that the cream rises to the top. Good cooks with good leadership and management skills will progress. The down side is that the higher in rank you go, the less cooking you will actually do, but that all depends on your desires and ambition.
As for working hours, there is no nine to five. This is an organization that is obsessed with starting early in the day and breakfast starts before that. So, there will be times when you will have to be up at 0400 to ensure the meal line can start at 0600. Mind you, we tend to work the shifts so that there are some guys who come in early and go home early and others who come in late and then leave late (sometimes supper doesn't end until 1900). There WILL be long days and you will have to work weekends. However, for the most part, when you're on a base, you will be able to live a pretty normal life, with days off etc. You will work harder and longer in operational units. On the plus side, there are sometimes opportunities to make extra money doing some of those formal dinners and the like.
In summary, being a cook in the CF offers many challenges and oppportunities, but it is not for the faint of heart. Bad or lazy cooks get identified pretty quickly and gotten rid of (we don't actually throw them overboard, but I've heard that threat...
)If you're up to it though, it can be pretty rewarding. I've never met a CF cook at the end of his/her time in the CF lamenting that it was all wasted.
