A student club at The Culinary Institute of America serves to enlighten and call to action on global social issues.
By Fareez Dossani
What an exciting time to be a part of the hospitality industry! Chefs are revolutionizing the way the entire world is eating. Never have we, as a society, been so conscious of our food. It’s great that Americans are beginning to question where there food is coming from, but we must become more well-informed and ask if the food we purchase is fairly traded.
The local food movement has made great strides in reducing carbon footprints and teaching civil society to take advantage of the resources available at our fingertips. But we thrive on those commodity products that cannot grow on American soil, such as coffee and chocolate. This is where the notion of fair trade comes into play. Generally speaking, the global population is unaware of the labor-intensive process that takes place in order to produce that sweet cup of morning joe, which fuels our groggy mornings and those midday slumps.
Women Chefs & Restaurateurs’ 2011 Educator of the Year acknowledges that any chef can serve virtually anything any time of year. But what have we sacrificed? Today’s culinary student is caught in the middle.
By JoAnne E. Cloughly
Some people say the Farm to Table movement is past tense. On the contrary, it is running full swing. When you think about what Farm to Table means, logic tells us that it means bringing fresh food from the farm to the dining table. It means supporting our local producers—the small family farm, the beekeeper, the rancher, the vineyards and much more. The results are keeping these businesses “in business” and, in exchange, being the recipient of the freshest products possible.
Of the three things you can manage—cost, quality and quantity—you can realistically only manage two. Or so thought the Institute for the Culinary Arts at Metropolitan Community College .
By James E. Trebbien, CCE, CCA
Omaha, according to some of the people who study such things, has more restaurants per capita than any other U.S. city. In addition to this amazing number of restaurants, the menu is varied, diverse, excellent and reasonably priced. The quality of the restaurants is excellent. As in most major metropolitan areas, to be a chef or restaurant manager in Omaha takes a lot of education and knowledge because of the competition, choices, culinary talent and business sophistication.
The president of the American Culinary Federation led an entourage of U.S. chefs to partake in and contribute their talents to the Bidvest World Chefs Tour Against Hunger in South Africa in August.
By Michael Ty, CEC, AAC
Like many chefs, I knew about the World Chefs Tour Against Hunger in 1993 and 2003, events that made a difference in the lives of the children of South Africa. Although I was not able to participate in those first two tours, I knew many ACF chefs who did. They came back with stories that were unbelievable, and some chefs considered the experience life-changing.
Olivewood Gardens and Learning Center in San Diego County connects and motivates students and families through organic gardening, environmental stewardship, nutrition education and cooking.
By Candy Wallace
I live in San Diego County, one of the most beautiful areas in the United States. Perched north of the U.S. border with Mexico, my county has 70 miles of coastline and a landscape of rolling hills against a backdrop of mesas and small canyons. We enjoy a mild, Mediterranean-like climate where tall palm trees thrive. As the second-most-populous county in California, to many residents, to live here is to live in Paradise.
The American Culinary Federation’s 2011 Chef Educator of the Year says success and failure through solo and team competitions helps prepare students for the real-life rigors of the workplace.
By Dina Altieri, CEC, CCE
Maybe I have always been competitive. I can remember wanting to hit a home run every time I got up to bat on the tee-ball field. I can remember my first softball coach encouraging me to be the best I could be at 7 years old.
Coaching is something we do every day as chef educators. We push our students to excel in ways they never thought possible. We have conversations with them about mise en place, professional etiquette and, of course, cooking ability. I vote we take it a step further and encourage them to compete in extracurricular competitions to whet their appetites for what lies ahead in the foodservice industry.
By Margaret Checchi, M.Ed.
Successful transitioning from hands-on learning to hybridized classes depends on faculty who can create dynamic and engaging course content delivered with students’ best interests in mind.
A decade ago, it was unheard of to serve foams and essences; it was unrealistic to manipulate food at the very heart of its molecular structure. What seemed unrealistic and impossible then is becoming almost mainstream now. So it is with education.
At New England Culinary Institute, our students slurp coffee desperately in the cold, black dark of the pre-dawn chill, hunching over pocket notebooks filled with ratios, temperatures, cook times and formulas as they create the day’s menus and generate mise en place lists. They are like the students before them and the ones before them, since Socrates held lessons in the olive grove. With luck, Chef will come into the kitchen having had a good night’s sleep and the students will get through the day without feeling completely inadequate.
By Mike Roman
Despite the challenges, we take joy in producing them.
It’s very easy to be a great wedding caterer. All you really need is a talented catering team, empathy, patience and a genie’s magic lamp. You need access to this lantern simply because most caterers get hit with some very challenging “wishes” from the bride, mother of the bride and every vendor associated with the wedding before, during and even after the wedding day.
Sadly, caterers don’t have access to a magic lamp; they must face a constant level of pressure on them while catering this emotion-filled event. Weddings can bring out the worst in customers. They really can’t help themselves because there are no do-overs in weddings. When the chocolate wedding cake promised turns out to be a carrot wedding cake upon cutting, there is no pause button to hit to create the time you need to make things right.
By Christopher Koetke, CEC, CCE
Are we heading for a worldwide famine by mid-century? Is our very civilization unsustainable? Is it too late to stop the train and turn it around? The answers are yes, yes and no.
Julian Cribb, Australian author of The Coming Famine (University of California Press, 2010), paints the picture of a perfect storm in which a number of sustainability issues will reach criticality and come together over the next few decades to portend a worldwide famine that will change the face of our world.
The concept of “peak oil” is something that we’ve all become familiar with over the last decade. Put simply, it’s a situation where demand outpaces the discovery of new reserves of a finite resource, so supply gets scarce and expensive. In Cribb’s estimation, water and agricultural outputs will also reach their peak in the near-term horizon.
In fact, we’re already seeing some evidence. While the United States, Australia and Europe are awash in food, literally throwing half of it away, the rest of the world is not. For the last half century a billion people in the developing world have been going to bed hungry every night. The resulting “food insecurity” has devastating effects.
By Mary Petersen
CAFÉ’s founder and executive director says combining the worlds of food and education has been the best ride of her life.
Being a guest speaker for “The Gold Medal Classroom” is an opportunity to reflect on, evaluate and possibly predict a particular topic of interest to foodservice instructors. I have had the privilege of this form of dialogue for many years with chefs who have become involved with education as well as educators who jumped (or were pushed) into the culinary-arts arena.
My reflection will be brief: Twenty-five years ago the majority of culinary-arts programs were certificate programs; there were no national standards as to the guidelines for a well-rounded curriculum; and the majority of our education was apprenticeship style (worthy of skills, though not as comprehensive as some liked). The American Culinary Federation stepped up to the plate and committed resources to recognize postsecondary programs that were willing to evaluate what they did against standards, host an on-site team of chefs and educators, and then make changes per the team’s suggestions so as to raise the bar for industry expectations of graduates.