The country’s oldest collegiate foodservice operation partners with a noted authority to meet student demand for cuisine authenticity.

Authentic Greek fare is being introduced to the menus and students at Harvard thanks to collaboration between chef and cookbook author Diane Kochilas and Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS). Beginning last summer and extending into the fall, Kochilas and HUDS have developed recipes, trainings and tastings, which will culminate in more than a dozen new items for HUDS’ residential-dining winter menus.

Greek cuisine, regarded for its nutritional benefits through the use of plant oils, lean proteins, vegetables and distinct seasonings, is an ideal fit for Harvard menus where students are increasingly interested in authenticity and health. Seafood and vegetarian options that appeal to non-vegetarians are among the most demanded items on student surveys.

Kochilas was a presenter at the Spring 2012 Worlds of Healthy Flavors conference, hosted by the Harvard School of Public Health and The Culinary Institute of America. HUDS’ managing director, David Davidson, and director for culinary operations Martin Breslin were in attendance and immediately saw the opportunity for bringing Kochilas’ expertise to campus.

Saying that five times fast led to a college student’s likeness in Darigold butter.

It took 110 pounds of butter, two days of carving and a 14-second, tongue-twisting video to make it happen. One lucky Seattle resident, Haley Alaji, was announced the grand-prize winner in Darigold’s “Better Butter” online contest, and as her prize, Darigold created an oversized butter bust carving of Alaji that will feature prominently on billboards throughout Puget Sound through December.

“It’s amazing to see myself in butter—the carving is so precise, and it actually looks just like me!” says Alaji, a theater student at the Cornish College of the Arts who lives in downtown Seattle and moved to the Northwest four months ago from Detroit. “I happened to come across Darigold’s contest asking people to submit videos of themselves saying ‘better butter better’ five times fast, and decided to go for it. I found a street performer playing the violin, set up my camera and shot a little spontaneous dance video, and the judges picked me!”

An interview with father and son Michel and Sébastien Bras of France.

By Brenden Blaine Darby

A small glance, a deep breath, a long pause and a lingering stare. These two men seem to dance with each other on a cerebral level, always interacting with the other’s thoughts. My questions are pondered in their own unique way and only answered once all the right words are ready to be expressed. While speaking, they look at each other to make sure they are always extracting and mixing their ideas together.

We need to remind our students that communication is an art that recognizes the dignity and importance of the receiver. In fact, have them consider taking the E-Mail Pledge.

By Dr. Fred Mayo, CHE, CHT

Last month, we talked about social-media etiquette for students and listed the five recommendations of accuracy, brevity, consistency, directness and expansion. This month, during the holiday season, we will review some common e-mail practices and suggest some guidelines for students to adopt because they are important in personal, and especially in professional, circles.

First Principle for E-mail Etiquette
There are a few commonly accepted principles for using e-mail that most professionals practice; students who Twitter, Facebook and instant message may not be aware of them. The first principle involves recognizing and honoring the audience of e-mail messages. Sometimes that audience is clear in the “to” box, but students should be warned that e-mail messages are often forwarded to other people and, therefore, need to be written carefully with a sense that others might read them and they might be kept and used for a range of different purposes in the future.

A must list that students should review frequently so they might keep their jobs in commercial kitchens.

By Adam Weiner, CFSE

Happy holidays!

Those of you who read this column on a regular basis know that I preach the need to teach your students more than how to cook. Unless you teach a pure home-economics class, your ultimate goal is to have your students get jobs in the culinary field. If you don’t teach them how to work in a commercial kitchen, you are dooming them to failure.

So, in honor of the 12 Days of Christmas, and December being the 12^th month, I will recap the 12 things that your students must know to be able to keep their jobs in a commercial kitchen. Feel free to print them out and give them to your students. Tell your students to look at them frequently when they start working.

The Great American Can Roundup Industry Challenge raises more than $183,000 for charity.

As the nation celebrated America Recycles Day on Nov. 15, the aluminum-beverage-can industry announced it had collected and recycled more than 235,100 pounds of cans, raising nearly $183,830 for local charities across the country according to the Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI).

The Rexam North American beverage-can headquarters office in Chicago won first place in the annual industry competition, with 70,775 pounds of used aluminum cans (874 per capita), followed by Novelis in LaGrange, Ga., whose employees collected 3,517 pounds of cans (352 per capita). In third place is Ball Corporation’s plant in Findlay, Ohio, collecting and recycling 36,611 pounds (101 per capita). Winners are selected from the highest per-capita collection rates based on the number of pounds of aluminum collected per employee at each site.

Building on its reputation for offering a professional culinary-arts program that is forward looking from the foundations of classical technique, Kendall College officially opened the doors to its new kitchen—the Cuisine Solutions Sous-Vide Training Kitchen—on October 19. The ribbon-cutting ceremony and dedication event was presided over by Kendall College President Emily Williams Knight.

The 1,300-square-foot kitchen showcase the latest in state-of-the-art sous-vide equipment, including Multivac vacuum-sealing machines and PolyScience immersion circulators. Training is delivered by skilled faculty in the Kendall College School of Culinary Arts.

Twenty-eight Monroe culinary students set off October 19 in a downpour headed upstate to Delhi, N.Y., to compete at the Annual ACF Catskills Regional Competition. When they returned to the Monroe campus they had 27 shiny medals to add to their collection, which is now toppling 300!

The top awards in the hot-food competition went to Kencito Vernon, who took home a gold medal and the honors of “Best in Show.” Laura Sanchez, a freshman, also took home a high-scoring gold medal that earned her the title “Most Improved.” Brenda Lara, Sade Aguila, Rossella Cangialosi, Stephanie Cardenas and Yocary Luna also earned gold medals.

The word “potato” conjures up different images for different chefs—and with good reason! There are more than 4,000 potato varieties worldwide with more than 100 varieties sold in the United States. So, it’s no wonder that one of the most frequently asked questions we hear from chefs is: Which potato should I use for best results?

To help you answer that question and get the most out of today’s most popular potatoes, the United States Potato Board is pleased to present our newest tool: The Perfect Potato: A Foodservice Guide to Fresh Potato Types.

Gaylord Industries, commercial kitchen-air-management experts, and Niagara County Community College (NCCC) recently celebrated the opening of the new Niagara Falls Culinary Institute. The state-of-the-art facility, with 25 teaching kitchens and labs, opened in September 2012 with 350 undergraduate students who seek a future in the hospitality and tourism industries.

When designing the new 90,000-square-foot institute, NCCC’s goal was to create culinary environments that were productive and efficient and leveraged cutting-edge equipment. At the top of the “wish list” was finding an opportunity to better facilitate interaction between the chef instructors and students.

“The cornerstone of success for education is communication. With students working and talking and equipment running, we found the noise level of our previous ventilation hoods was a big problem,” said Dr. James P. Klyczek, president of NCCC. “By using Gaylord throughout the new institute, we changed the dynamic of the room with a much quieter system, plus we get the added benefit of energy conservation due to the automatic air modulation.”