I landed here two weeks ago and the job calls I’m getting skew toward live-fire, nixtamal, and whole-animal work… I’ve got two stages on South Lamar next week for sous roles, and I want to invest fast — would a short butchery intensive or a nixtamal lab be the better signal in this market? Transparent note: most offers hover around 68–72k and light up when I talk masa and tallow; curious what education translates to hires here.
Go nixtamal first — Austin lights up on masa; book https://www.masienda.com before ‘South Lamar’ stages. Butchery next if menus skew whole-animal.
With your “two stages on South Lamar” next week, do a quick nixtamal lab and show up with a small test batch — dial in cal %, steep time, and grind — and ask what corn they’re running. If those kitchens lean hard into “whole-animal,” line up Texas A&M Rosenthal’s one-day butchery workshop next; it reads well locally: https://meat.tamu.edu/workshops/. Bringing masa is the chef’s mixtape — mind if I ask which spots you’re staging at?