The National Restaurant Association’s “What’s Hot” survey of more than 1,500 professional chefs—members of the American Culinary Federation (ACF)—reveals that local and hyper-local sourcing, healthy children’s meals, sustainable seafood, and gluten-free cuisine will be among the hottest trends on restaurant menus in 2011. In addition, the chefs said that mobile food trucks and pop-up restaurants will be the top operational trend in restaurants next year.

By Kirk T. Bachmann, M.Ed., CEC, AAC

In culinary and pâtisserie arts, assessment should be structured so that the emphasis in practical, hands-on skill development is on cooking and baking skills and their respective applications. Here, Chef Bachmann uses the proper teaching of the classical mother sauces and their derivates to illustrate.

Before students fully grasp the specific techniques involved in cooking and baking, it is imperative that they first develop a thorough understanding of fundamental skills or techniques. In developing meaningful learning activities that leverage behavioral learning principles, dynamic educators focus on increasing the frequency of their students correctly achieving their assigned task or tasks. The goal of any robust learning activity is to facilitate an observable change in behavior.

As a long-time educator with Le Cordon Bleu, I take great pride in developing learning activities for adult learners enrolled in our various culinary-arts and pâtisserie and baking programs. A percentage of our students are cooking enthusiasts, many are career changers, but most are recent high-school graduates. Adult learners are unique. They are interested in academic application that is interdisciplinary in nature and incorporates previously learned proficiencies. “Adults are autonomous and self-directed. They need to be free to direct themselves. Their teachers must actively involve student participation in the learning process and serve as facilitators for them” (Lieb, 1991).

By Renee Zonka, RD, CEC, CHE, MBA

Just when we finally had our mouths wrapped around the fifth taste sense of umami, a newly discovered sixth taste, kokumi, emerges. How will this affect our teaching of flavor development?

After several years, umami has been firmly acknowledged as the fifth flavor profile, joining salt, sweet, sour and bitter. It has been described as the overall sensation of “savory meatiness” and is present in foods high in glutamic acid or the once-forbidden monosodium glutamate (MSG).

By Brian Campbell, CEC, CCE

Restaurants need students who can not only create and reproduce quality independent sauces (cold and hot), but also know how to use them properly.

I have taught several different classes over the years: Classical French, International, Stocks and Sauces, Traditional European, New World (Cuisine of the Americas) and, most recently, Garde Manger. It is in the latter that I have found myself settling for an extended stay. At our school, Garde Manger is a sophomore-level class that, more often than not, follows an externship in the industry that lasts a full term (about 12 weeks). I mention this only to put into perspective the experience level of the students when they enter my class. They have a year of freshman-level skill-based classes and at least some work experience (externship) that ideally placed them in a full rotation in the kitchen where they were able to put these skills into practice.

Courtesy of FoodChannel.com

Pie, sausage, nutmeg and moonshine top the list.

In the food business, everyone’s looking for the “next” this, or the “new” that. Here are the foods and flavors we see making noise in the new year.

1. Small Pies. Pie, of course, has been around forever, but 2011 could be the Year of the Pie. Some are already calling it the “next cupcake.” We say, yes, pies will be hot in the coming year, but look for smaller pies to make it big—in both sweet and savory varieties.

By Lynn Schwartz

David Guas, owner of Bayou Bakery, Coffee Bar & Eatery in Virginia, learned early on to shut up and listen.

David Guas has earned accolades from The Washington Post, The New York Times, Esquire and Food Arts. In 2003, Bon Appétit featured him as one of eight “Dessert Stars” in the country and Oprah Magazine’s May 2010 Tenth Anniversary issue cited Guas as one of the country’s best pastry chefs. Guas appears regularly on the “Today” show and joined RJ Cooper on “Iron Chef America.” His book, DamGoodSweet: Desserts to Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth, New Orleans Style (Taunton Press, 2009), was named one of Food & Wine’s “Best New Dessert Cookbooks” of the year, and was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award and an International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Award. Despite the high praise, Guas describes himself as an “accidental pastry chef.”

By Dr. Fred Mayo, CHE, CHT

Using an evaluation form makes a difference in the way students work in small groups, encouraging them to provide feedback to each other.

Last month, we discussed using small groups in classes; this month, we will discuss peer evaluations as a way both to help students learn to work with other students and to assess their own work and the work of others.

Process
When I use small groups on long-term projects, one of the ways that I encourage students to work together more effectively is to require them to think about what contributions their fellow students make to the project work. An essential element of any final report is the submission, in hard copy, of a self evaluation and peer evaluations of each of the students in the small group.

By Adam Weiner

Chef Weiner completes his valuable student-handout series on purchasing and properly handling and caring for knives.

The articles for the last three months were written in a handout format for your students on how to buy knives/how knives are made, how to hone and sharpen knives and an introduction on how to use knives. This month’s article, again in a form to give out to your students, is about knife safety and care.

The Culinary Institute of America and Grapes from California introduce an online learning module with innovative menu applications for table grapes.

“Grapes Make the Plate: Fresh Ideas for Modern Menus” is a free online resource at www.ciaprochef.com that illustrates the deeply flavorful, healthful and wide-ranging ways in which fresh California table grapes can create eye-candy color appeal and menu inspiration.

Taking fresh California grapes into new realms of culinary innovation, “Grapes Make the Plate” explores using California grapes in everything from soups and salads to main courses and desserts. Through online videos, chef-tested recipes and information on the nutritional value of fresh grapes, the online learning module presents scores of new ideas exploring the grape's culinary potential, including underutilized techniques such as juicing, roasting, carbonizing and frying grapes that create compelling textures and nuanced flavors.

By Christopher Koetke, CEC, CCE

A tool for exploring sustainable seafood.

If there’s one thing we educators all share, it’s a shortage of time. That’s why turn-key teaching tools, especially those that aren’t developed to promote a product, are manna from heaven. When it comes to sustainability, seafood is a particularly thorny issue because there really are no black-and-white answers. As Bon Appétit Management Company’s Helene Kennan, executive chef at Google, has said, “Sustainable seafood is the culinary challenge of the 21^st century.”

“Green Chefs, Blue Ocean” has arrived on the scene to help. Developed jointly by Chefs Collaborative, one of the most forward-thinking chefs’ organizations in the country, and the Blue Ocean Institute, this program can help you and your students explore the world of sustainable seafood.