By Douglas Alley, Johnson & Wales University

Many clients are now choosing to spend their dollars in ways that will have a positive impact on the environment.

Sustainability is not a passing trend, but a real lifestyle that has taken permanent roots. It is our responsibility to nurture the planet for future generations. The move toward the development of eco-friendly businesses is an absolute requirement, not just for the health of the business, but for the well-being and survival of the planet.

In perhaps no other industry is the need for a more ecologically aware business model more acute than in catering. Sometimes called the “Marines” of the foodservice industry, caterers often adopt a “take no prisoners” attitude when staging an event. Every day, all around the country, caterers routinely do the impossible: transforming grassy fields into swoon-worthy tented extravaganzas; converting mediocre rental spaces into the sweet stuff of bridal dreams, if only for a brief moment in time. While the results can be magical, the ecological toll can be staggering.

By Jeff Bricker, CEC, M.Ad.Ed., Ivy Tech Community College

Collaboration is the ticket to successful short-term study-abroad trips.

What happens when a group of Midwestern culinary/pastry students (some of whom have never left their home state) travel to Europe for a two-week study-abroad experience?

Does this sound like a lead-in to a television reality show? Well, this scenario is real, all right, and the results can sometimes be as interesting as popular television reality shows! But great things really happen every summer when a group of culinary/pastry students and faculty chaperones from Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana continue a 20-year tradition of international travel that takes them to France, Italy, Germany or Spain.

The short-term study-abroad trips are a real immersion in the cuisine and culture of the European regions and are loaded with daily excursions to fresh-food markets, vineyards, cheese producers, oyster farmers and many of the artisan food crafters that make the international culinary experience come alive to the students. Also included are classes in the culinary schools of the regions that add an academic element to the international experience. Daily excursions enhance the educational experience with visits to important historical sites that add to students’ cultural awareness, as well.

By Andrew Schloss

Education is the mission of the USA Rice Federation, which is committed to supporting the professional growth of culinary students and future chefs. As the global advocate for all segments of the U.S. rice industry, the federation is made up of rice producers, millers and merchants—people who work with rice from the ground up and have a passion for providing high-quality products along with information that is reality-based and well tested.

By Adam Weiner, JobTrain and the Sequoia Adult School

To help the student who’s prepping for an interview, share this compendium of need-to-knows.

One of our key responsibilities as instructors is to make sure that our students can do well in interviews. If they cannot give a good interview, they can’t get a job. I repeatedly work on teaching soft skills to my students on how to interview. I will write about that in the next issue of The Gold Medal Classroom.

Below is a culinary cheat sheet that I give to my students to study before every interview. Now, it probably isn’t useful to just copy it as is, but it might be useful to you to modify it for your students.

By Christopher Koetke, CEC, CCE, Kendall College School of Culinary Arts

10 ideas to encourage your students to make sustainability part of their careers.

As educators, our mission is to prepare future culinarians, not only for the foodservice landscape as it exists today, but as we expect it will be in the future. Trends come and go, but sustainability marks a paradigm shift in the way we will do business. The debate over the validity of climate change is over, and the challenge is staring us in the face.

But with great challenge comes great opportunity. Given its size and energy consumption, the foodservice industry can be the tipping point in preserving the world for future generations. To put it in perspective, there are approximately 945,000 restaurant locations operating in the United States. According to the National Restaurant Association Conserve: Solutions for Sustainability initiative. Those restaurants use five times more energy per square foot than other commercial buildings. Furthermore, with energy costs accounting for 30% of a typical building’s annual budget, it’s about financial sustainability, as well.

By Wendy Gay, CHE

Service makes it special, wherever you are.

As a part of my celebrating one of those birthdays that has a 0 in it (why do they always seem so significant?), I just returned from a visit to France. It was a wonderful trip with a number of experiences that will probably find their way into future articles.

One of our first lessons in customer service came on our first night, in Nice, and at one of the most inexpensive restaurants we visited on the entire trip.

Nice is a beautiful port city on the Mediterranean, and a favorite of many famous artists, from Chagall to Matisse to Picasso. Its food is influenced by its ready supply of seafood, fresh produce and a strong Italian influence.

By Mitch Stamm, CEPC, Johnson & Wales University

For baked goods, honey is more expensive than sucrose, but like butter, honey is prized for its taste, aroma and mouthfeel.

Honey by the numbers Bees are responsible for one in every three bites of food in our country. A bee weighs .004 of an ounce; it can transport half (.002 of an ounce) of its weight in nectar. For every 9 pounds of honey in the hive, 1 is harvested for human consumption and 8 remain to sustain the hive. That 1 pound of honey represents more than 2 million flowers visited with more than 50,000 miles of flight, approximately three times around the world A bee’s life is measured in miles, not time. An average is 500 miles or until its wings are worn and tattered.  In the spring, when nectar flow is at its peak, this can be as short as five to six weeks.

By Dr. Fred Mayo, CHE, CHT, New York University

Each of these strategies can help your students get ready for class and build their enthusiasm for the topic of the day.

The best way to motivate students and help them get ready for learning new material, reviewing old material, or trying out new skills remains starting each class session with a sparkler. A sparkler connotes something that is typically bright, draws attention, and brings everyone’s focus to one thing at one time. It can be a way to get students to focus on terms and concepts they need to learn and skills they need to develop or practice.

There are a wide range of sparklers that you can use to begin your classes.They include quotes, numbers, images, anagrams, provocative questions and outcomes. The rest of this article highlights some examples and suggests ways that you might use them.

By Brent T. Frei

Michael Holleman gets to the bottom of a top-of-mind foodservice issue.

“Sustainable” is one of the hottest buzzwords in the foodservice industry today. Yet, ask 10 people to explain what sustainable food production means, and get 10 different responses. At least one supplier has defined the term, the result of maintaining a business model that has remained virtually unchanged for more than 30 years.

Michael Holleman, corporate chef of Bemidji, Minn.-based Indian Harvest, Inc., a niche supplier of rice and rice blends, exotic grains and legumes to foodservice, believes that diners today are looking for more than food. They want an event. “It has to be something special: stunning plate presentation, culinary adventure, distinct pairing,” he says.

He also believes diners hanker for a story behind the food that brings the experience to life, evidenced by unprecedented interest in foods’ origins before they land on the plate. That’s why Indian Harvest grains and grain blends are borne of a passion that extends from farm to fork.

The third-annual Student Culinology® Competition at RCA’s 2009 conference exemplified the blending of culinary art and food science.

An enthusiastic student team from University of Cincinnati took first-place honors, along with a $5,000 cash award and industry-wide recognition as rising stars in food-product development, at the third-annual Student Culinology® Competition, May/June 7, during the Research Chefs Association’s (RCA) 2009 conference at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel. The award was presented by Agnes Jones, principal culinologist at National Starch Food Innovation, at the 2009 RCA Annual Luncheon, where nearly 500 food-product-development professionals gather each year to celebrate industry achievements.

The competition is designed to challenge and recognize the industry’s young talent in the Culinology field–the blending of culinary arts and food science.

The winning team from UC was led by faculty advisor Christopher Keegan, CEC, senior research chef at Cargill Flavor Systems, and team leader Christian A. Serrato, CC. Team members included Robert Coltrane, CC, John Parsons, CC, and Andrew Scholle, CC.