With the addition of Master of Wine Adam Lapierre (pictured) to the team and three brand new programs to the schedule, San Francisco Wine School now boasts top-level educators from, and coursework for, all four major wine credentialing bodies. The school’s elite group now comprises three Master Sommeliers (Court of Master Sommeliers), three with Diplomas in Wine & Spirits (Wine & Spirits Education Trust), three Certified Wine Educators (Society of Wine Educators) and one Master of Wine (Institute of Masters of Wine). This guarantees that, no matter which educational path wine students choose, they will be fully supported by San Francisco Wine School.

The National Honey Board (NHB) has introduced a colorful, eye-catching, new, information-rich resource, A Guide to Honey Beverages. Serving as a complement to the Sweet Stirrings cocktail guide (2012), the honey beverage handbook features nearly 40 spiral-bound, laminated pages replete with honey tips, tricks and on-trend recipes to help operators enhance their non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverage menus and programs.

The new honey beverage guide includes the following highlighted, tabbed sections:

The Culinary Institute of America has appointed Rose S. Wang as the college’s vice president of strategy. Wang joined the college on Feb. 3, 2015, after serving as the chief financial officer of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s Center to Advance Palliative Care in New York City since 2013.

Before taking her position at Mount Sinai, she was managing director of Carat Companies, a Princeton, N.J.-based consulting firm to nonprofit organizations, and division CFO of beverages for the Campbell Soup Company in Camden, N.J. Prior to that she held several financial and strategic planning positions with Avon Products, Inc., and Citibank N.A., including executive director of business planning, director of international finance and operations, and director of finance and corporate development.

Maple Leaf Farms challenges professional chefs and culinary students to think outside the box when it comes to duck preparation. And to spark their creative juices, Maple Leaf is offering more than $19,000 in prize money in the 2015 Discover Duck Recipe Contest.

This year’s focus is “Duck Redefined,” which encourages participants to create a dish featuring duck as the main ingredient in a non-traditional way. “Our contest encourages chefs to think outside the box beyond just roasted whole duck or a sautéed duck breast,” said Maple Leaf Farms’ director of duck marketing, Cindy Turk. “Duck is such a versatile protein, the possibilities are endless.”

On a recent trip to Hawaii, Chef Weiner had an epiphany: Teaching our students how to cook isn’t good enough. To better prepare them for the real world, we also need to introduce students to the different formats of serving. Here are 10 effective ideas that fit nicely within a shorter class timeframe.

By Adam Weiner, CFSE

One of the beauties of being active with CAFÉ is that you get to meet fellow culinary instructors, culinarians, students and chefs from around the country. I joke around that every time I return from the Leadership Conference I have to buy a larger business-card holder.

(Speaking of the Leadership Conference in June, I will be giving a presentation entitled “Teaching the Basic Cooking Principles in 50 Minutes.” It is designed specifically for high-school teachers. I hope you can attend, because I would love to have participation from a broad range of instructors.)

There is another way that being active in CAFÉ expands your network: You use CAFÉ to find others in the field in places where you will be travelling. Several months ago I mentioned to Mary Petersen, the president of CAFÉ, that my wife and I were going to Kauai. She introduced us via e-mail to Martina Hilldorfer, culinary-program coordinator and chef at the Culinary Institute of the Pacific at the Kauai Community College.

Although they represent nearly a quarter of all restaurant visits among Americans, Millennials’ visits and dollars spent are down considerably from several years ago. Why? Chiefly, they find it’s cheaper and healthier (and enjoyable) to cook at home. So, what can operators do to earn greater patronage from this highly desired demographic?

Millennials are the chosen generation for many marketers because of their sheer number and perceived buying power, but they are not a homogenous group. Depending on their age and lifestyles, they use restaurants differently, according to a recently released report by The NPD Group, a leading global information company.

For U.S. restaurants and foodservice outlets, Millennials as a group currently represent about 14.5 billion visits and $96 billion in spending, which is 23% of total restaurant spend. But the group has cut back in both visits and spending, finds the NPD report.

Two decades ago, dining out was primarily a special occasion. Today, it’s part of daily life for all Americans. But what differentiates the prepared-food-away-from-home choices of a “foodservice hobbyist” and an “affluent socializer”? Technomic offers an in-depth view of the current consumer foodservice landscape.

Technomic’s New Consum4Sight Group gathered data points from 81,870 consumer foodservice occasions over one full year to reveal a look ahead at the 2015 landscape. One surprising pattern: More than half of eating-out occasions are unplanned or decided on impulse. At 53% of all dining occasions, the frequency of “eating on the fly” accounts for more than twice as many routine occasions (25%); special occasions account for just 22% of dining occasions.

Familiarity with cooking and incorporating lentils into various menu applications can help your students meet nutrition regulations, budgets and consumer demands when they become foodservice professionals.

Foodservice educators not only need to prepare their students to meet expanding nutrition regulations in schools and healthcare settings, but to simultaneously cater to increasing consumer preferences for healthy, affordable and sustainable ingredients that—above all—still taste good. Allow us to introduce a dark horse in helping foodservice educators rise to meet this challenge: lentils.

Top 10 Facts Your Students Need to Know About Lentils

1. Lentils are nutritional powerhouses. They are cholesterol-free and sodium-free, and loaded with potassium, folate, iron and fiber. One serving of lentils boasts nearly half as much protein as a serving of pork, and two times as much proteinas a serving of quinoa.
2. Lentils naturally cater to a variety of specialty diets, including gluten-free, vegetarian and allergen-friendly. Lentil flour can even be used as a wheat-flour alternative to make gluten-free baked goods (like the cookies pictured).

Emily Williams Knight—the newest of three educators on the NRAEF’s board—is committed to helping more Americans achieve meaningful, fulfilling careers in the restaurant industry via a respected national industry platform.

Emily Williams Knight, president of Kendall College, Chicago, is among the newest members elected to the Board of Trustees of the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation (NRAEF), the philanthropic foundation of the National Restaurant Association (NRA).  Knight was welcomed to the board at the NRAEF’s annual meeting on Jan. 30 in Orlando, Fla. She will serve a two-year term with the possibility of serving two additional two-year terms. Knight is the first representative of Kendall College to serve the NRAEF in this capacity in the foundation’s 28 years.

As a new trustee of the 35-member board, Knight represents not only Kendall College’s Schools of Culinary Arts, Hospitality Management and Business to the NRAEF, but also the farther-reaching role of higher education in supporting the NRAEF’s strategic initiatives. These include creating educational programs that provide pathways to employment in the restaurant and foodservice industry and supporting an effective communications program that conveys opportunities for advancement in the industry, as well as the impact of community engagement.

Here’s a valuable education-resources fact sheet to help educators effectively teach seafood sustainability.

Courtesy of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation

Education is the key to the future development and management of sustainable fisheries and aquaculture. Available below as a .pdf file for download, educators will find descriptions of helpful web sites linking them to an array of educational materials so they can develop an appropriate curriculum for their classes.

Begin by visiting Monterey Bay Aquarium’s SeafoodWatch website at www.seafoodwatch.org. This site provides downloadable pocket guides as well as important information on seafood species, fishery and aquaculture issues and much more.