The deadline to submit your entry in the 7th-annual CAFÉ/Kendall College Green Award program is April 1.

By Christopher Koetke, CEC, CCE, HAAC

The Kendall College School of Culinary Arts and the Center for the Advancement of Foodservice Education (CAFÉ) are accepting applications for the 2015 CAFÉ/Kendall College Green Award.

Sustainability, once dubbed the “wave of the future” for the foodservice industry, is the reality today.

The CAFÉ/Kendall College Green Award, which since its inception has been sponsored by Kendall College, is the first national award to recognize high-school and professional culinary-arts and baking/pastry programs for their commitment to practicing ecological sustainability on campus and/or integrating innovative teaching of sustainability in the curriculum.

Kendall has dedicated itself to sustainability in its classrooms and operations since 2005, and even more gratifying than the value we’ve reaped on our own campus has been the privilege of sharing our knowledge with other educators and learning from them. That is the impetus behind the CAFÉ/Kendall College Green Award.

Assigning an interview as an out-of-class activity will help your students practice networking, making connections with industry professionals and interacting in a professional manner.

By Dr. Fred Mayo, CHE, CHT

My past two “Mayo’s Clinics” have focused on out-of-classroom activities because they are an important part of a student’s education and one that we often do not have a chance to discuss or think about. In this column, we will discuss the challenges and values of using interviews as an out-of-class learning activity.

Reasons for Using Interviews
There are a number of benefits that derive from using interviews. If you give your students an assignment to interview a specific person or persons in certain positions—chef de cuisine, pastry chef, maître d’hôtel or restaurant manager—they will have to do some research on the person and prepare a list of questions to use in the interview.

If you do not make the arrangements ahead of time with persons who are willing to be interviewed or provide students with access to specific individuals, the assignment gives them experience in reaching out and contacting industry professionals, requesting an appointment and making all the appropriate arrangements for an interview. Learning this range of skills contributes dramatically to students’ professional development at an early point in their careers. Hopefully, it also helps them build some confidence in their networking skills.

Everyone benefits from a well-branded program—from faculty and staff who take pride in their institution to employers who are able to hire well-prepared graduates to donors who line up to be on a winning team.

By Paul Sorgule, MS, AAC

Jeff Bezos, CEO of amazon.com, once said: “Your brand is what other people say about you when you are not in the room.”

What is most important about this statement is that brand, when built and executed properly, is bigger than your college’s marketing campaign, more significant than what is printed in your collateral pieces or what appears on your website. Brand is what people believe you to be. Belief involves trust and loyalty, two components of success that carry any business, in this case a college culinary program, to a level of success that is measured in decades of exceeding expectations.

Ground beef and hamburgers are two of America’s most beloved meat products, yet also among the most misunderstood when it comes to how they’re made. With that in mind, American Meat Institute (AMI) has developed a new video as part of its “Glass Walls” series featuring a tour of a processing plant that produces ground beef for several major restaurant chains. The tour is led by Birchwood Foods/Kenosha Beef president and CEO Dennis Vignieri, whose family has been in the beef business for nearly 80 years.

The video highlights the entire process of making ground beef and hamburgers and shows how beef trimmings are analyzed and ground into a specific lean-to-fat ratio that consumers enjoy and finally formed into patties that are packaged and sent to restaurants and grocery stores. More than half of the beef consumed in the United States is ground beef.

Juleps Catering at Sullivan University in Louisville, Ky., is pleased to announce the addition of chefs Laurent Vals and Jacquelyn Thompson-Lee to its culinary team.

Vals joined Juleps in October 2014. Previously, he worked in restaurants in Paris and New York City before opening his own hand-crafted chocolate company in Rhode Island. In 2014, he won the Dessert Cup competition and took fifth place for Chocolatier of the Year at the annual Pastry Live convention. Born in Paris, Vals received his culinary degree from l’Ecole Hoteliere du Moulin a Vent in 1986 and his pastry-chef degree in 1989. In his new position at Juleps, Vals oversees the day-to-day kitchen operations; coaches, mentors and guides catering interns; and develops new menu ideas while managing seasonal menus.

For the third straight year, the winner of the culinary competition at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) Academic Cultural Technology & Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) will be enrolling at The Culinary Institute of America (CIA). Frehdee Gatewood of Houston, Texas, was the gold-medal winner at a cook-off held at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Las Vegas last summer. By winning the event, Gatewood earned a half-tuition scholarship to the CIA. She enrolls at the Hyde Park, N.Y., campus this month, majoring in culinary arts.

Last year’s gold-medal winner, Darrell Crawford of Chicago, is beginning his CIA studies in January 2015, as well. Karina Yepez, who won in 2012, is currently a sophomore.

Gavin Pierce, a student at Baker College of Port Huron’s Culinary Institute of Michigan (CIM), was highlighted in the Fall 2014 edition of Life with Teens, a magazine published quarterly by TeenLife Media for parents.

The article highlighted reasons to consider careers in trade professions and featured teens who have chosen to do just that. Pierce, a rising young chef, is a prime example. He is earning an associate degree in culinary arts at the CIM Port Huron and recently won a silver medal at a regional cooking competition.

“Gavin is an outstanding young chef, and displays a great amount of passion for the profession,” said Thomas Recinella, CEC, ACE, AAC, CIM Port Huron program director and COURSES Restaurant executive chef. “He enjoys engaging all five senses and blending his artistic work into the equation. That type of passion is unique, and I know that an impressive future lies ahead for him.”

Having culinary students keep professional journals is beneficial to their learning—and eventual employment. But if that task is too daunting to your younger students, Chef Weiner proposes a simple, less-intimidating way for them to track their progress in class.

By Adam Weiner, CFSE

For years I got feedback from chefs, kitchen managers and human-resources people that my students often stumbled in interviews when asked the obvious (and apparently simple) question: “So, what have you made in class?” I was told that the student being interviewed magically morphed into a deer in the headlights. For years I struggled with how to prevent this from happening.

In June 2014 my friend and colleague, Dr. Fred Mayo, wrote in his column in CAFÉ’s “Gold Medal Classroom” about the importance of students maintaining professional journals during and after their culinary educations. I concur. Unfortunately, for many vocational-level students, and for high-school students, the idea of doing this is intimidating. They need a bit more structure and guidance in order to accomplish this task.

I came up with a simple chart. (See a sample chart that follows and the downloadable MS Word attachment below.) Every day the student has to spend her or his last minute in class filling in the form. Of course, you can have your students do it less frequently if that works better for them and you. I tell the students to bring these forms to interviews. They can, if necessary, show them to the interviewer.

Members of the American Culinary Federation are well aware of the quality and relevance of the organization’s official magazine, The National Culinary Review. The publication’s current success with readers and impact on the industry is due to its editor-in-chief for more than a decade, who recently received the highest recognition possible from her peers.

Courtesy of the International Foodservice Editorial Council

No one in the audience at The Betty award lunch on Nov. 4, 2014, during the International Foodservice Editorial Council (IFEC) annual conference in Dallas seemed surprised when the much-anticipated announcement came—except the awardee herself. (See photo.)

Kay Orde, editor-in-chief of the American Culinary Federation’s The National Culinary Review, was so focused on getting her camera ready to shoot the winner that it took her a moment to realize it was her name that was called.

A member of IFEC since 2003, Orde has served the organization in many capacities, including secretary of the board of directors, Chef Showcase co-chair (two years in a row) and member of the Professional Development Awards and Mentoring/New Member Orientation committees.

The Betty Bastion Outstanding Service Award, a.k.a. The Betty, is presented annually to celebrate one IFEC member who has provided extraordinary service to IFEC and the foodservice communications field and stands out as a knowledgeable and generous professional. Named for Betty Bastion Varese, who retired as IFEC’s first executive director in 1991, the award was inaugurated that year.

In nominating Orde for the 2014 award, Katie Ayoub, managing editor of Flavor & The Menu magazine and one of several IFEC members proposing Orde, said, “I have worked with her as both a writer, pitching article ideas, and as a publicist, pitching magazine placement. She has always been receptive, attentive and professional in those exchanges. Kay gives her heart and mind to IFEC, and I can think of no one more deserving of The Betty.”

IFEC member Mary Petersen, founder and president of CAFÉ, also nominated Orde. “I always appreciate Kay’s prompt and supportive feedback, as well as her keen editing skills,” Petersen wrote. “Kay is a kind professional with a willingness to help others in the IFEC community.”

Before becoming editor-in-chief of The National Culinary Review, Orde worked incommunications for the ACF in St. Augustine, Fla., producing the membership newsletter Center of the Plate. Her background includes: staff writer, The Chapel Hill News, Chapel Hill, N.C.; technical writer, Research and Evaluation Associates, Chapel Hill; staff writer/editor, Research Triangle Institute, Research Triangle Park, N.C.; freelance writer, Durham Morning Herald, Durham, N.C.; and several area magazines. Prior to joining the ACF, she taught English at Flagler College in St. Augustine.

A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and honors in creative writing, Orde earned a master’s degree in English and environmental studies at North Carolina State University, Raleigh. She lives in St. Augustine with her husband, celebrated novelist Lewis Orde. The couple has two married daughters and three grandchildren.

According to IFEC, the 2014 presentation was especially exciting, opening with a video celebrating past recipients (24 in all) leading up to 2013 Betty honoree John Scroggins of Noble Communications +, Springfield, Mo., announcing Orde. The original Betty (Bastion Varese) and 15 previous Betty winners were on hand to help congratulate Orde.

The 2014 Economic Impact Report recently released by the Club Managers Association of America reveals that country, golf, athletic, city and other clubs spend billions on goods and services in their local communities. Additionally, they hire hundreds of thousands of personnel.

The Alexandria, Va.-based Club Managers Association of America (CMAA) recently released its 2014 Economic Impact Report in conjunction with Club Benchmarking. This biannual report details the economic impact of the more than 2,600 clubs managed by members of the CMAA.

The total direct economic impact for the club industry in 2013 was $21 billion, including all tax revenues generated as a result of club activities. Clubs are significant contributors to their local communities, with dense, highly local economic activity. The vast majority of cash flows resulting from purchases, employment, taxes, charitable giving and other economic activities are centered in the community in which the club operates.