Graduates need to crawl before they walk and walk before they run. What are the skill sets that chefs and restaurateurs expect your students to have when they start their employment? Can your students meet those expectations?

By Paul Sorgule, MS, AAC

Designing a culinary program is no different than developing any other sound business with potential for growth. The key is to focus on two primary areas as a start:

• Identifying the need
• Envisioning the opportunities

I would encourage all those responsible for the health and viability of a culinary program to assess their curriculum with these two areas in mind. First, does your program adequately address the current needs of the industry that it serves? Have you engaged this industry in the process of ensuring that the content and measureable results meet the skill sets that are critical for entry-level culinarians? Are your graduates “kitchen ready”?

Although all culinary programs are mindful of preparing graduates for a career that brings them to positions of greater responsibility, graduates must first demonstrate their ability to function as part of a kitchen team. Graduates need to crawl before they walk and walk before they run. What are those skill sets that chefs and restaurateurs expect your students to have when they start their employment? Do you engage industry leaders in identifying those skill sets and is your curriculum designed to adequately address them?

Greener Fields Together™, which documents farms’ sustainability gains, lauds four well-known produce suppliers that were recently recognized for significant improvements in waste reduction, CO² emissions, water and energy use, and more.

More of the fresh produce headed to restaurant kitchens and grocery stores nationwide is now verifiably “greener” and more sustainably raised. This accomplishment is thanks to Greener Fields Together, the sustainability and local-produce initiative created by the PRO*ACT produce supply-chain management company, which works with partner farms to implement and track continuous, farm-to-fork sustainability improvements. Via independent verification service SureHarvest, Greener Fields Together has documented significant sustainability improvements made by four of its national farm partners: D’Arrigo Bros. Co. of California, Mission Produce, Grimmway Farms and Rainier Fruit Company.

Detailed case studies evaluating and verifying strides made by these companies are now available on http://www.greenerfieldstogether.org/national_farms_featurettes.php. Highlights include:

D’Arrigo Bros. By merging several facilities into a single location situated in the heart of its farming fields, D’Arrigo saves an estimated 300,000 truck miles previously traveled each year to haul product from field to cooler. This is the equivalent of taking 123 cars off the road each year and cutting annual CO² emissions by 593 metric tons. By reducing travel time and distance from field to cooling facility, D’Arrigo also has improved product safety and quality.

Mission Produce. Mission has implemented an innovative, fully automated system to manage water and nutrients at its San Luis Obispo, Calif., avocado orchard. The system enables Mission to irrigate and fertilize precisely when and where the trees need it to optimize production using less water and fertilizer per unit. The company’s investment in water-management innovations has resulted in significant savings.

The National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation (NRAEF) is accepting nominations for its 2014 “Restaurant Neighbor” and “Faces of Diversity” awards.

Entering its 16th year, the Foundation’s “Restaurant Neighbor Award,” founded in partnership with American Express, celebrates the outstanding charitable service performed by restaurant operators. Likewise, the “Faces of Diversity” award, sponsored by PepsiCo Foodservice and founded in 2007, is presented to members of the restaurant industry who, through hard work and perseverance, have achieved the American Dream.

Sullivan University’s Louisville campus and the National Center for Hospitality Studies congratulate associate department chair of culinary arts chef Rob Beighey and director of baking and pastry arts chef Derek Spendlove and team coach chef David Wheatley on their most recent victory at the American Culinary Federation Chefs Competition in Indianapolis.

The Collins College of Hospitality Management breaks ground for LEED Gold-certified expansion.

California State Polytechnic University, Pomona’s Collins College of Hospitality Management commenced construction of its $10 million building expansion during a groundbreaking ceremony on Nov. 7.

The 15,000-square-foot expansion includes two buildings and addresses the college’s growth needs in a sustainable way by striving to achieve LEED Gold certification. In addition to more classrooms and faculty workspace, the project will create a home base for the college’s three-year-old graduate program and a social space for students. Classrooms will utilize cutting-edge technology and innovative “flex” furniture designed to move and adapt to the evolving needs of today’s classroom. The project was designed by Ontario-based HMC Architects. Gilbane Building Company is the project’s construction management at-risk firm.

A veteran educator takes a road trip in search of the perfect bite.

By Bruce Konowalow, CCE

Finding good food in out-of-the-way places has been second nature to my wife, Carolle, and me. We have traveled 300-plus miles for a smoked-beef sandwich at Ben’s in Montreal, midnight trips to Chinatown in New York City, early-morning sojourns to the backdoor of Bridgeport, Conn.’s Zeislers bakery for fresh pastries still hot out of the oven, and have taken trips to eastern Long Island, Cape Cod and Connecticut for a good lobster roll.

Part of this quest has always been to find the holy grail of burgers, beefy nirvana. I do not know if there really is a best burger, but the experience is the thing. Those trips have taken us to quaint seaside clam shacks, rustic barbecue venues and hole-in-the-wall joints in big cities.

That being said, it came as no surprise to my wife when I asked her if she wanted to go to Amarillo to have a great burger at a little joint called the Coyote Bluff Café, a burger restaurant we had just seen on the Travel Channel. We were living in Dallas, so Amarillo was a good six-hour drive with few pit stops. The trip required a couple of tanks of gas and an overnight stay, so we knew these $8 burgers were going to cost about $75 each.  We scurried to the library for a couple of tour books and hit the road.

Chicago’s top-ranked hospitality school predicts international knowledge and digital branding will drive global opportunities

The Kendall College School of Hospitality Management, ranked the No. 1 program in Chicago for preparing students for hospitality careers, has released its trends outlook for the hospitality industry in 2014.

1. Global Going Strong: International Knowledge in Demand
According to the World Travel & Tourism Council, the travel and tourism industry is currently among the largest and fastest-growing industries worldwide, forecasted to support 328 million jobs, or 10% of the workforce, by 2022.¹ A top 10 industry in the United States, travel and tourism provides one out of eight jobs, with that number increasing at an exponential rate, adding approximately 55,000 jobs per month in 2013.^2,3

Specifically, with the United States a global travel hub, forecasting nearly a 30% increase in international arrivals through 2018, and Chicago already reaching 65% of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s goal of 50 million visitors by 2020 in just two years, Kendall suggests the No. 1 trend is “International Knowledge in Demand.”^4,5

“It’s an exciting time to be part of a fast-paced and evolving industry, and it’s our goal as thought leaders to provide an unparalleled, well-rounded education that positions students ready for opportunities in the U.S. and beyond,” said Emily Williams Knight, Kendall College president. “Chicago is one of the most vibrant hospitality and business centers in the country, so students have a unique opportunity to literally be in the center of such a dynamic and important global industry, which ultimately gives them a professional edge.”

Famous artwork by Lou Dorfsman, to be showcased in The Culinary Institute of America’s new Marriott Pavilion, will support the Hudson Valley as a destination for art and culture.

For the last 25 years one of the world’s largest modern typographic artworks has been hidden away in a basement on Long Island. This will change in January 2014 when the work, “Gastrotypographicalassemblage,” will become the focal point of The Culinary Institute of America's new Marriott Pavilion and Conference Center in Hyde Park, N.Y. The creation of legendary CBS art director and designer Lou Dorfsman, the work measures more than 33 feet wide and 8 feet tall, and consists of more than 1,650 individual letters spelling out culinary terminology and expressions, as well as 65 food-related objects.

From 1966 to 1989, Gastrotypographicalassemblage was on display in the staff dining room at CBS Network headquarters in the legendary Black Rock building in New York City. There it captured the imaginations of both visitors and employees, but in 1989 the work was removed during a renovation. Without a new home, it was saved from the landfill by designer Nick Fasciano, who stored the mural for more than two decades while Dorfsman worked to find it a new venue.

For the first time, says Technomic, a majority of U.S. consumers prefers hot or spicy flavors. And sweet is the ultimate pairing partner when staying ahead of the flavor curve.

The most familiar, tried-and-true flavors might have impressive staying power on menus, but Chicago-based Technomic’s most recent flavor findings also signal the need for operators and suppliers to stay on top of flavor trends by reinvigorating classic offerings with new and unique twists.

Three-fourths of consumers (73%) say that if they try and like a menu item with an innovative flavor, they would be highly likely to return to the restaurant for the same menu item.

“In a competitive foodservice climate, flavor differentiation is a must-have for operators,” says Darren Tristano, executive vice president of Technomic, Inc. “Because today’s foodservice consumers have such a strong expectation for innovative flavors, operators and suppliers have to help the menu stand out by staying ahead of the flavor curve. Knowing which flavors are up and coming and truly enticing to guests will be essential in gaining their dining-out dollars.”

The advantages of peer coaching include helping people realize they can solve their own problems while helping others. It also broadens their awareness of how many people they can call on for assistance.

By Dr. Fred Mayo, CHE, CHT

Last month, we discussed helping students take charge of their lives by using a technique called the three-legged conference. This month’s column is about peer coaching, and the rest of the fall will focus on other strategies for helping students learn to take charge of their education and their lives.

Coaching Explained
Coaching is the process of one person helping another person to clarify the coachee’s goals, jointly determining strategies to attain those goals, and providing support for reaching the goals. It differs from consulting since consultants provide advice based on their background knowledge and experience; coaches commit to help their coachees do what is important to the coachees. Coaching differs from therapy since therapists are interested in why, and they focus on the present and the past; coaches are interested in what and how, and they focus on the present and the future.

The challenge in coaching is really listening to the other person and not providing advice or judging what the other person says or wants to do. It is a full commitment to helping the other person in the areas where the other person wants to focus. Many teachers find coaching hard to do since it differs so radically from their normal work as teachers, dispensers of knowledge and evaluators. It is even hard to shift from facilitating learning to coaching; these functions draw on different sets of skills.