By Audrey Heckwolf

Culinary students love learning tableside, and guests will become committed patrons if we treat them to dinner and a show.

The art of tableside service is near extinct. Few restaurants offer fresh preparations performed at a guest’s table. It seems to be isolated to cruise ships, French restaurants, catering and Sunday brunches. It is incredibly challenging to even find reliable sources on the subject that date more recent than the 1970s.

By Adam Weiner

Says Chef Weiner, with summer here, it’s time to look at your curriculum, look at your syllabus, look at your lesson plans, and see what you can do to make sure you teach the basics your students need to get and keep a job.

My program runs year 'round. I have new students starting and senior students graduating every month. I envy my friends whose classes have summer breaks. It would be great to have some off time to review what happened in the previous class term: what went well, and what needed improvement. I would then take these points and modify my course curriculum, changing what didn’t work, and strengthen what did.

607 colleges and universities nationwide competed to reduce, reuse and recycle

Every spring, students across the country become RecycleManiacs, competing for national supremacy to determine which school can reduce, reuse and recycle the most campus waste. The Denver campus of Johnson & Wales University recently received accolades for recycling nearly 42 pounds of food waste (on a per-capita basis) from any other competing college or university.

An e-learning lesson plan at ciaprochef.com sponsored by Starbucks Foodservice.

Every great cup of coffee begins with top-quality beans: the right variety, grown in the right place, and processed the right way. The more you know about the beans, the more enlightened coffee consumer you will be. After all, the only other ingredient in the brew is the water.

This lesson plan, part of ciaprochef.com—The Culinary Institute of America's Web site for foodservice professionals—was sponsored by Starbucks Foodservice and includes the following areas of training:

By William C. Franklin, CMC, AAC

Like a bell curve, leadership in new chapters of professional organizations rises, then wanes. Adopting certain structural steps will keep a chapter strong, delivering long-term value to members.

Over the four and a half decades that I have worked in this industry, I've observed one constant: The industry puts greater demands on all of us every day. We are busy people with work and life's general requirements. Most of us no longer have the benefit of volunteering weekly or daily hours to our favorite professional organization.

The life cycle of most American Culinary Federation chapters is somewhat predictable and can be applied against a simple bell curve. The curve could cover 10, 20 or 30 years. The beginning of the bell curve represents the energetic chartering group in their mid-20s and 30s. They work hard to get the chapter established and grow the membership, sometimes into the hundreds. This group seems to be the energy and catalyst that sustains all programs and events while moving the chapter forward.