Almost 25% of the motor cortex of the human brain is dedicated to the hands. Yet as chefs, says this former president of a prestigious culinary school, we take better care of our knives.

By Paul Sorgule, MS, AAC

I have been giving lots of thoughts to my tool kit lately. Like many chefs, I have a plethora of knives, forks, cutters, pastry tips, strange new gizmos and the like. My tool kit (if I brought everything with me to the kitchen) would require a two-wheel cart to drag it from location to location. Instead, I usually bring a handful of knives in a small tackle box.

Unlike some of the young “chefs in training” who have $300 Japanese knives, mine are pretty modest. Keeping an edge on the knife is the only real important factor in determining how well a knife cuts.

As I look at this arsenal of cutting equipment it suddenly came to me that the knife without the hand is pretty useless. This made me really start to wonder in amazement at the versatility of the human hand and how it truly is the most important tool in a chef’s kit.

It and 10 others join The Food Channel’s 2013 Trends Forecast. Smoked water, anyone? And “no choice” is becoming the new choice when dining out.

The Food Channel recently released its 2013 Trends Forecast, compiled in conjunction with CultureWaves® and the International Food Futurists®. Here’s an abridged look at what The Food Channel sees happening in the world of food this year. Click here for the full report.

1. Kickstarting New Food Concepts. Kickstarter, GoFundMe and other crowdfunding sites have been around a while, but we see them really kicking it up to a new level in the food and hospitality arena in the coming year. Got a new food product idea, or want to build a new restaurant? Go for it, and make it a crowdpleaser.

Cascade Culinary Institute builds a new culinary center whose physical and spatial attributes meld perfectly with its natural surroundings, facilitating student learning and the successful collaboration of education and community.

Located on the perimeter of the Central Oregon Community College (COCC) campus in Bend, Cascade Culinary Institute’s new Jungers Culinary Center is the anchor for a future mixed-use development, providing academic and commercial opportunities for the college and its students.

Portland-based Yost Grube Hall (YGH) Architecture collaborated with nationally recognized culinary and kitchen-design professionals to analyze the academic program and then develop a new curriculum and facility to support it. The new 15,000-sq.-ft. building reflects the college’s partnership with the region’s leading hospitality establishments and their staffs, resulting in a flexible facility program that will accommodate the culinary school’s needs for the next five to 10 years.

Using Kickstarter for funding, RADISH rolls out as a reality for a group of Providence students of various disciplines. And delicious, wholesome food served from an artists’ hub on wheels becomes the order of the day.

By Douglas D. Stuchel, MAT, CHE

RADISH, a food truck serving locally grown and organic menu items, was built to promote healthy eating and fostering creativity in Providence, R.I. The food truck was the brainchild of a few passionate students at Johnson & Wales University, Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University who were looking to put their exciting and progressive ideas to good use. Besides serving organic, farm-fresh food, the RADISH team also promotes artists, musicians, cooks and adventurers every month via its truck and website.

Jack Uldrich to launch Mercer Cutlery’s Speaker Series at inaugural CAFÉ event in Chicago, Feb. 22-24, 2013.

The Center for the Advancement of Foodservice Education (CAFÉ) is pleased to announce that Jack Uldrich will keynote CAFÉ’s inaugural event for postsecondary deans and directors of hospitality and culinary-arts programs, Feb. 22-24, 2013, at Kendall College in Chicago.

Uldrich is a renowned global futurist, independent scholar, sought-after business speaker and author. His books include the best-selling The Next Big Thing Is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business and award-winning Into the Unknown: Leadership Lessons from Lewis & Clark’s Daring Westward Expedition and Jump the Curve: 50 Essential Strategies to Help Your Company Stay Ahead of Emerging Technologies.

Among menu trends this year, Kraft Foodservice chefs predict that “Food Nationalism” will take root with diners. And 2013 will be the year of the pretzel.

Trend analysis for 2013! What’s on the horizon? Kraft Foodservice’s team of chefs weighs in, giving thoughtful analysis on today’s most accessible trends. See the entire write-up at http://bit.ly/V1mGO6. “Like” Kraft Foodservice at www.facebook.com/KraftFoodservice.

1. Customization and Food as Experience Merge
Customization and food as experience are two mega trends that are now walking in step with each other. And diners are eating it up.

Unlike its domestic and imported-beer counterparts, craft beer has been able to defy overall beer market trends and continue expansion during the economic downturn and subsequent slow recovery. Who’s drinking the most craft beer? Older Millennials.

While the economic downturn has affected consumer spending across many sectors, craft and craft-style beers are defying recessionary trends with an impressive upward trajectory. Indeed, latest research by Mintel on the craft-beer market in the United States shows that sales of craft beer nearly doubled between 2007 and 2012—increasing from $5.7 billion in 2007 to $12 billion in 2012.

Moreover, the trend toward craft-beer options is set to enjoy robust growth through 2017, with Mintel forecasting the segment to grow to $18 billion by 2017—a result that will see the segment tripling in the decade between 2007 and 2017.

“While the craft and craft-style beer category remains a small segment of the $78 billion U.S. beer industry, the category has been able to stabilize the overall beer industry, which has experienced volume declines in the domestic and imported-beer categories since 2008,” says Jennifer Zegler, beverage analyst at Mintel.

John Dewey taught us that we do not learn from experience, but from reflectingon our experience. While recently this column has focused on the strategic uses of social media in teaching, this month it revisits the traditional tried and true.

By Dr. Fred Mayo, CHE, CHT

Over the past several months, we have been talking about social media, ways to use it in teaching, and advice for our students. This month, we will return to a focus on teaching practices and discuss ways of using notes, journals and reflective papers instead of blogs, the contemporary form of diaries and journals.

Context
For the past year or so, I have required students to participate in a blog on customer service as part of their assignments in the course, Customer Relationship Management. When I asked them recently if they thought the assignment was valuable to them and worth continuing, they indicated that other assignments were more important and useful. They also said they monitor so many professional blogs that this one does not add much to their education. They suggested having students take notes or keep a journal of incidents of customer service, instead. Therefore, I will try that assignment this spring and add the requirement to reflect on what they observed.

Chef Weiner offers a solid primer to print out and provide to students, ensuring they’ll understand a recipe fully and be on the look-out for pitfalls before they begin to gather their mise en place.

By Adam Weiner, CFSE

Last month I stressed the importance of not limiting your students to simply learning how to follow recipes or how to cook by technique only. Students need to learn both skill sets. As I mentioned last month, it is important to follow recipes in a commercial kitchen to ensure that no matter when a customer orders something, it will always taste the same, be the same size, and the food costs for each plate will be the same.

The following is what students need to learn about reading and writing recipes. Feel free to copy it and give it to your students. However, you might want to remove the “Note for Instructors” below if you want to use that little trick on your students.

New resources, recipes and menu ideas are available online for students’ use, to teach them to understand how to help consumers make informed food choices—not only during National Nutrition Month in March, but all year long.

Courtesy of the Soyfoods Council

Soyfoods have played an important role in Asian cuisines for centuries. In recent years they have become popular in Western countries because of their nutrition and health properties.

Soyfoods are excellent sources of high-quality protein and provide a healthy mix of polyunsaturated fat. In addition, independent of their nutrient content, there is very intriguing evidence indicating soyfoods reduce risk of several chronic diseases including coronary heart disease, osteoporosis and certain forms of cancer. All individuals are well advised to eat a couple of servings of soyfoods every day.