In the award program’s inaugural year, two secondary and two postsecondary educators earned recognition for distinction in training professional cooks of tomorrow at the 11^th-annual CAFÉ Leadership Conference in June.

Sysco, the world’s leading foodservice distributor, recognized four foodservice educators in the 2015 CAFÉ/Sysco Corporation Educator of the Year Awards at the 11^th-annual Leadership Conference of the Center for the Advancement of Foodservice Education (CAFÉ), June 18 in Niagara Falls, N.Y.

“In our first year of supporting this new annual award that acknowledges the tremendous industry contributions of foodservice instructors throughout the United States, we were introduced to many genuinely gifted teachers,” says Neil Doherty, CEC, Sysco’s senior director of culinary development.

“All of them submitted amazing endorsements from their administrators, program and industry colleagues and former and current students—making the selection of only two award recipients and two runners-up from both high-school and college-level training programs extremely difficult. In the end, thanks to their extraordinary career accomplishments, four individuals stood out.” They are:

High-school culinary-arts programs in Grand Rapids, Mich., and Batavia, N.Y., earn honors for exemplary practices in—and innovative teaching of—ecological sustainability.

Kendall College, Chicago, and the Annapolis, Md.-based Center for the Advancement of Foodservice Education (CAFÉ) presented 2015 CAFÉ/Kendall College Green Awards to two secondary hospitality programs during a June 18 reception at CAFÉ’s 11th-annual Leadership Conference for foodservice educators at Niagara Falls Culinary Institute, Niagara Falls, N.Y.

Among dozens of submissions from secondary and postsecondary programs nationwide, Kent Career Technical Center in Grand Rapids, Mich., received this year’s top award. According to chef-instructor Sarah Waller, who teaches advanced baking and pastries at Kent, the $1,000 grant from Kendall College will help fund the high school’s goal to become the first water-bottle-free secondary school in Michigan.

A bakery entrepreneur leaves nursing behind to enroll in an online pastry-certificate program, and the result is sweet.

Kim Washington is the perfect example of someone who has never given up on her dreams. She recently retired early from a decades-long career in nursing to pursue her passion of starting a bakery. Now with Escoffier Online International Culinary Academy’s pastry certificate under her belt, she feels more ready than ever to tackle whatever obstacles may lie ahead.

Exploding Desserts LLC opened in May 2015 in South Holland, Ill. So Escoffier Online sat down with Washington to talk about what it takes to open a business, her favorite pastries to make and the No. 1 ingredient she makes sure to put in all of her creations.

Escoffier Online: You have quite a bit of culinary/pastry schooling. Why did you want to attend Escoffier Online?
Kim Washington: I was intrigued by the history of Escoffier. His name and works are mentioned in many of my cookbooks and he’s quoted and fashioned after numerous times in the culinary world. Then I sought out to learn more about the online culinary school and was excited about what it offered and the fact that I could study on my own time.

An understanding of “putting in place” is one of the most important skills for culinary students to learn and practice in becoming professionals. Says Dr. Mayo, proper mise en place is actually composed of three parts—all of which do double duty in the kitchen and dining room.

By Dr. Fred Mayo, CHE, CHT

In the last “Mayo’s Clinic,” we completed a three-part series on using out-of-class learning experiences such as interviewing, structured observation and shadowing. This month, we will talk about a core issue in culinary education: mise en place.

Mise en place—literally, the phrase in French means “putting in place”—has become a personal and professional discipline for chefs. It structures the way they work in kitchens and, for many of them, how they organize and structure their lives. There are even articles such as “For A More Ordered Life, Organize Like A Chef”published in the NPR blog, “The Salt,” that point out how useful the discipline can be in life.

As we teach our students to learn and practice mise en place, it might be useful to remember the three dimensionsof mise en place: physical, intellectual and emotional.

Physical Mise en Place
One of the primary foundation skills we teach new culinary students involves the practice and importance of organizing their stations in a kitchen before they start to prepare food. It is a matter of both arranging the equipment and the ingredients since both are critical to successful cooking.

Donna L. Quadri-Felitti has been selected as the new director of the School of Hospitality Management at Penn State, effective July 2015.

“Dr. Quadri-Felitti brings a combination of academic and industry experience, which means she will do well at helping the school build relationships with industry partners and other external constituents, such as alumni,” said Ann C. Crouter, Raymond E. and Eric Stuart Schultz Dean of the College of Health and Human Development. “She brings a broad perspective on hospitality from foodservice to hotels while understanding the connection between communities and hospitality.”

Prior to joining Penn State, Quadri-Felitti served on the faculty of the Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism in New York University’s School of Professional Studies, where her most recent post was as academic chair of the center.

Quadri-Felitti replaces John O’Neill, professor of Hospitality Management, who will lead the school’s new Center for Hospitality Real Estate Strategy.

While at NYU, Quadri-Felitti developed and taught various hospitality-management undergraduate and graduate courses not only at the flagship campus in New York City, but in NYU programs in Florence and Prague. She has advised scores of undergraduate and graduate students on their individual academic, research and career development.

Individuals with a flair for cooking can now put their passion to work at Star Career Academy’s Egg Harbor Township, N.J., campus, which recently introduced three new culinary programs: Professional Cooking, Commercial Cooking and Professional Pastry & Baking.

The Professional Cooking class began on April 7, 2015, with new classes beginning each month. In June, the campus began its first Commercial Cooking class and on July 1, 2015, the first Professional Pastry & Baking class.

Star Career Academy has a history of producing satisfied graduates. Graduate Aronita Foxwell initially began attending classes simply to hone her cooking skills, but after spending time in the classroom, she realized she wanted to make cooking her career. Foxwell realized her dream and works in her field as a chef. Now, individuals residing near the Egg Harbor Township campus have the same opportunity to pursue this career path.

Famed chef and television personality Jacques Pépin was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from The Culinary Institute of America after delivering the commencement address at the college’s New York campus on May 22.

Pépin served as personal chef to three French presidents, including Charles de Gaulle, and his career in the United States ranged from cooking at some of the nation’s finest French restaurants, such as New York’s Le Pavillon, to being a trailblazing R&D chef for Howard Johnson’s.

“Today is your day,” Pépin told recipients of associate degrees in culinary arts and baking and arts. “It is a time of hope; a time to believe in yourself; a time to dare, to be curious, to be enthusiastic, to be tenacious, and to be engaged. It is a time in your life where the word ‘impossible’ does not exist; a time to reach for the sky.”

The National Honey Board (NHB) presented the first-ever Laurey Masterton Golden Amulet Award at the 2015 Women Chefs & Restaurateurs’ (WCR) Conference and Gala Awards Dinner on April 20 in New York City.

Recognizing trailblazing women entrepreneurs in foodservice, the inaugural award and $2,500 cash prize were presented to Kerry Diamond and Claudia Wu, founders of Cherry Bombe magazine, by National Honey Board CEO Margaret Lombard.

Golden Amulet Award winners Diamond and Wu had a vision for a print magazine highlighting women in the food industry, while still employing the aesthetic qualities of a fashion magazine. After a successful Kickstarter campaign in 2013, their vision became a reality as Cherry Bombe magazine, which was soon followed by a complementary radio show, Radio Cherry Bombe.

Kendall College is pleased to announce the recent promotion of Dina Altieri, CHE, CEC, CCE, to dean of the School of Culinary Arts. Previously, she was a chef-instructor and associate professor at the college for seven years.

“Chef Altieri is not only the consummate educator, but renowned nationally for her culinary and management skills in a wide range of foodservice operations,” says Emily Williams Knight, president of Kendall College. “Adored and looked up to by students and admired and respected by our faculty and administration, she is the ideal dean for the School of Culinary Arts as we celebrate our 30^th anniversary this year and embark on the next 30. Given her vision, passion, expertise and drive, Chicago’s—and the nation’s and world’s—culinary community looks forward to the positive impacts her leadership of our esteemed program will make on the domestic and global foodservice industry of tomorrow.”

Altieri was born in New York City and has worked in the foodservice industry for nearly a quarter century. She graduated as salutatorian from The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., in 1991, with an associate degree in occupational studies.

Building her career following graduation, Altieri cooked from coast to coast for multiple restaurants, catering operations and special events, including those of the famed James Beard House in New York and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Hollywood. She worked as sous chef at Fino in Torrance, Calif., and as executive sous chef at Descanso in Hermosa Beach, Calif., before becoming executive chef at More Than A Mouthful, Inc., in Los Angeles.

What can the graduate do for the school? Says Chef Sorgule, the proper question should be, What can the school do for the graduate?

By Paul Sorgule, MS, AAC

Considering the ongoing questions about the value of a degree and the ever-changing landscape of the food business, I am constantly giving thought to how administrators of culinary programs can increase the perceived and real value of an education in food.

Everyone is certainly aware of the pressure pertaining to value being passed on to institutions from accrediting bodies, especially those preparing students for technical trades. The answer moving forward might very well be in shifting how we look at a degree.

For far too long, earning a college education was a two- or four-year process that students went through in pursuit of a degree. In other words, students passed through the college experience, incurring significant debt, with closure coming on graduation day.

The connections that continue to exist between the college and the graduate are limited to alumni newsletters, reunions and gift requests from the Institutional Advancement Office. We might invite an occasional graduate back to speak to a class or provide a demonstration, but, for the most part, the theme is: “What can the graduate do for the school, rather than what can the school do for the graduate.”