Does your program meet the needs of the industry it serves and adequately prepare your students to shine?

By Paul Sorgule, MS, AAC

I just finished re-reading Bill Buford’s book, Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany,about his hands-on experiences on the line in Mario Batali’s restaurant and subsequent time working with arguably the finest butcher in all of Italy.

As I finished this great depiction of the learning process in kitchens I was again inspired to look at how we prepare students for the rigors of the kitchen. What came through very clearly in Buford’s story (and from my own experiences as a chef) was the intensity of the kitchen and the realization that a strong culinary program must be able to recreate this intensity if students are truly destined to “learn.”

There is a difference between teaching and training, and both must be present in a curriculum if the end result is a graduate who is “kitchen ready” today and “career ready” tomorrow. What operational chefs are looking for in culinary graduates is a strong foundational knowledge of cooking, positive attitude, willingness to learn, the ability to work with others as a team, efficiency, stamina and the ability to multi-task under pressure.

To me, it only makes sense that this should be the starting point in building a modern culinary curriculum. Every course built, every lesson plan designed, every facility built and every faculty training session should reflect back on these expectations. Does this design meet the needs of the industry it serves and adequately prepare our students to shine?

As U.S. fisheries rebound under strict federal management, more species earn Seafood Watch “green” and “yellow” rankings. Meanwhile, shrimp caught in Louisiana waters remains on the “Avoid” list.

U.S. fisheries are rebuilding under tough management regulations required under federal law. One sign of success: the growing number of seafood items that have earned a “Best Choice” or “Good Alternative” recommendation from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program.

In 2013 alone, red snapper from the Gulf of Mexico, monkfish and trap-caught black sea bass from the East Coast, and many Atlantic flatfishes have been upgraded, based on new data in the peer-reviewed science reports that underpin all Seafood Watch recommendations.

Today, 95% of the 242 most commercially important U.S. fishery species assessed by Seafood Watch are rated either green (Best Choice) or yellow (Good Alternative). The percentage is based on total landings in ports on the West Coast, Gulf Coast, Atlantic seaboard and in the Great Lakes.

Seafood Watch recently upgraded U.S.-caught red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico to a “Good Alternative” recommendation because sound management has helped once-depleted populations recover. Trap-caught black sea bass from the South Atlantic was also upgraded to a “Best Choice” recommendation.

The Lexington College Board of Directors recently announced the appointment of Professor Kelly O’Leary as president of Lexington College. For the past three years, O’Leary has served on the faculty in the Hospitality Management Department. Since July, she has served as vice president of the college.

O’Leary has a passion for building culture by educating and inspiring the next generation of women. She was selected as the ideal candidate to shepherd Lexington College through its imminent growth phase due to her years of experience in leading, training and developing young women. The Board of Directors is confident that she will be an inspirational guiding force for students, faculty and staff.

O’Leary holds a master’s degree in gastronomy from Boston University and a bachelor’s degree in music from Furman University. She also received professional training at The Culinary Institute of America. She has written several significant papers including her master’s thesis, “The Flouring of New England: Wheat and Its Function in the Lives and Loaves of Colonial Americans.”

As co-founder and executive director of the Art of Living, O’Leary built an international skills-building program for high-school girls. Her previous professional experience includes work at Montrose School in Boston, Van Ness Study Center in Washington, D.C., and Arnold Hall Conference Center in Pembroke, Mass. Prior to joining Lexington College, she served as executive chef and general manager for Bayridge University Center in Boston. Throughout her career, she has dedicated significant time to educating young women in the skills of service, culinary arts, fashion, home health and interior design.

With her background in culinary arts, gastronomy and hospitality, and the relation of these fields to women building culture, O’Leary is considered uniquely poised to oversee not only Lexington’s growth, but the growing impact of the college on society.

Not every chef who steps into the kitchen is ready for the challenge of competition in front of the camera. New England Culinary Institute graduate Sean Quinn (’01) recently beat out the competition on Food Network’s culinary-competition show, “Chopped.” Quinn is also a graduate of C-CAP (Careers through Culinary Arts Program), designed to prepare high-school students for college and career opportunities in the hospitality industry. The scholarship he received through C-CAP allowed him to attend New England Culinary Institute and eventually led him to become executive chef at Chadwick’s in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he has been for seven years.

As “Chopped” champion, Quinn received $10,000, which he donated to the C-CAP program to help others pursue their education in the culinary arts.

Winner of “Chopped” in 2012, NECI Executive Chef Jean-Louis Gerin congratulated Quinn on his accomplishment:  “As a ‘Chopped’ champion, I know the intensity and pressure one is under when opening the mystery basket. I won by staying focused, disciplined and true to the fundamentals of cooking. The education that Sean received at NECI with intensive hands-on learning and a focus on fundamentals was a part of his win, too. Congratulations to him.”

The National Honey Board (NHB) is pleased to announce the winners of its 2013 “Perfect Pairings” Culinary Student Honey Recipe Contest. Conducted in collaboration with “The Gold Medal Classroom”/Center for the Advancement of Foodservice Education (CAFÉ), the competition drew an impressive response, with more than 100 entrants from postsecondary culinary programs nationwide.

“We are thrilled with the response and participation from so many talented students, instructors and institutions across the country,” said NHB director of marketing Catherine Barry. “It was difficult narrowing down the recipes from so many outstanding entries, but we think the winning students did an exceptional job of highlighting the versatility of honey through their food and beverage pairings.”

The American Personal & Private Chef Association (APPCA) recently honored four chefs with Awards of Excellence at the 2013 APPCA Personal Chef Summit at Stratford University in Baltimore.

The following received recognition from Candy Wallace, founder and executive director of the APPCA, at the conference’s awards luncheon on Oct. 12:

• 2013 Career/Life Balance: Javier Fuertes, chef/owner, Fitchburg, Mass.-based The Dinner Maker serving central Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire
• 2013 Marketer of the Year: Jim Huff, chef/owner, Queens-based Traveling Culinary Artist serving metro New York and Nassau County
• 2013 Chefs of the Year: Dennis Nosko and Christine Robinson, co-owners, A Fresh Endeavor serving greater Boston

Following the ceremony, Wallace moderated a best-practices panel featuring the four award recipients, who shared their winning formulas for building successful personal-chef businesses with more than 50 conference attendees from throughout the nation.

Why culinary teachers should consider operating a personal-chef business as an adjunct career. It’s not only for the additional income.

By Candy Wallace

These days in foodservice we hear a lot of talk about the future, because the industry is constantly changing. The personal-chef career path might have started out as a fad in the early 1990s, but with the hard work of a small group of committed individuals, it has grown into a legitimate culinary career acknowledged by the largest organization of professional cooks in the Western Hemisphere, the American Culinary Federation. Since 2002, when I signed a partnering agreement with the ACF on behalf of the American Personal & Private Chef Association (APPCA), the ACF has certified personal chefs.

I am the founder and executive director of the largest professional personal- and private-chef trade association in the United States—and a working personal chef. Twenty years ago, many of my colleagues went on record that personal chefs were merely a fad and would never last as a legitimate culinary-career choice. Some went so far as to say that personal chefs are not “real” chefs.

Today, however, successful personal chefs are making comfortable, satisfying livings, and the vocation continues to become more mainstream each year. Personal chefs are here to stay, and this career choice will continue to flourish as more culinary and hospitality students and career-changers choose to follow their dreams of entrepreneurship doing what they love most: cooking wholesome, palate-specific food for others.

At this year’s Worlds of Flavor Conference at the CIA in the Napa Valley, presenting chefs from the best kitchens in Western Europe, Asia, Latin America and the United States stressed developing a sense of place in one’s cuisine.

The 16th Annual Worlds of Flavor® International Conference & Festival welcomed 700 culinary professionals at The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) at Greystone, Nov. 14-16. They heard from 70 chefs and presenters from 15 countries who worked through more than 400 recipes during 53 sessions.

Under the theme “Kitchens Connected,” the program combined traditions and trends, fine-dining innovations and comfort-food memories, Millennial insights and information technology for restaurateurs. “Today's digital world offers à la minute glimpses into countless kitchens—and the culinary geniuses animating them,” says Greg Drescher, vice president of strategic initiatives and industry leadership. “At this year’s conference, we pulled back the curtain on some of the major ideas and dynamics shaping the future of the food world, here in the U.S. and around the globe.”

Annual dinner for national foodservice media, prepared by students, recognizes an exemplary professional U.S. culinary-arts program.  

Olson Communications is proud to announce that Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Portland, Ore., is the recipient of the 2013 Chefs of Tomorrow™ Award.  Sharon Olson, founder and president of Chicago-based Olson Communications, presented the award on Oct. 29 at the annual dinner for foodservice media.

The Chefs of Tomorrow Award launched in 2008 as a grant program to assist the professional development of foodservice educators in postsecondary culinary-arts programs nationwide. According to Olson, Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Portland earned a 2013 award as an exemplary program preparing students for fulfilling careers in the hospitality industry.

“The broad and challenging hands-on curriculum at this venerable Portland institution draws on Le Cordon Bleu’s century-old tradition of immersion in the culinary-arts and hospitality world and instruction that emphasizes demonstration followed by practical application,” Olson says. “We were impressed with the cutting-edge facility and passion and dedication of the students in the program, who train with experienced and supportive chef instructors, faculty and staff.”

Several foodservice educators contributed to the American Culinary Federation’s chef team’s second-place win among 12 teams in Dubai.

The American Culinary Federation (ACF) culinary-competition team received a gold medal at the Dubai World Hospitality Championship 2013, Dubai, UAE, Nov. 16-18, giving the United States second place overall in the international competition. Singapore’s culinary team placed first and Australia’s team was third.

“The U.S. team worked together to represent the fresh, unadulterated flavors of American cuisine,” said Edward Leonard, CMC, WGMC, AAC, team captain. “After two months and three practice sessions, we finished second against 11 other countries and achieved our goal of a gold medal based on flavors, craftsmanship and teamwork. My toque is off to my fellow chefs in pastry and cuisine. They excelled in this competition with passion, pride and a quest to be the best.”

ACF organized a team of seven chefs at the invitation of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, to represent the United States at the inaugural international competition held at the Dubai World Trade Centre. The ACF team competed against 11 other teams from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates and Wales.

The seven U.S. chefs competing were: