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.

By Allison Shaskan, M.A., CSCE, El Centro College

What do you do when one student takes charge, and the others stand around talking?

I am a chef-educator at El Centro College, a regional two-year community college located in the South. As my culinary program “lives” within a larger college, we admit all students no matter their cooking ability.

This means that on the first day in the kitchen I have 18 students in new uniforms waiting for instruction. Some have worked for years in professional kitchens, some have extensive experience in home kitchens, and some have never turned a stove on to boil water.

By Albert W. A. Schmid, MA, CCP, CHE, CFBE, MCFE, CCE, CEC, COI, Sullivan University

Or, my big fat Greek dinner during the NRA Show in Chicago.

I discovered Greek cuisine in Lincoln, Neb., at a small eatery called Papa John’s when I was studying at the University of Nebraska. No, this establishment had no relation to the franchised pizza parlor. It was located a few blocks away from campus and came complete with a large Greek family that could have been cast in the Hollywood movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  Each member of the entire family had tons of personality. The father and sons ran the kitchen while the mother and daughters tended to the tables and front of the house. The family always seemed to have fun working together in the restaurant. The food portions were as large as the owners’ personalities, perfect for a hungry college student.

One of the reasons I enjoyed eating there was the ouzo, an anise-flavored liqueur. There were many nights when I consumed more than one shot of ouzo with my meal. I always enjoyed the atmosphere of the restaurant. Every meal was a celebration. Since then I have had many Greek meals, and it always invokes memories, feelings and smells of my time in the Cornhusker State and that little Greek eatery.

By Edward Korry, CWE, CSS, Johnson & Wales University

Wine-tasting not only educates students or young professionals about wine, but also serves as a method to develop their sensory-evaluative abilities and hone precision in thinking and descriptive vocabulary. Wine is a valuable tool for revealing differences in their abilities and taste perceptions from others. They learn whether they are super-sensitive, sweet, tolerant or hyper-tolerant tasters, which will be of critical value in their careers.

The advantage of using wine as a learning tool is that, unlike food, it can concentrate the mind on fewer tastes: sweetness, acidity and sometimes bitterness without the additional complex elements of salt or fat. The subtle differences between one wine and another helps to focus on narrow differences and thereby develops one into a more astute taster. It is essential to have comparative tastings so that students experience the differences between samples.

By Colin Roche, MBA, CEC, CCE, FMP, CHE, Johnson & Wales University

These mini- and full-lab exercises will help you teach legumes effectively.

Legumes (LEHG-yooms) are a group of plants that have double-seemed pods containing a single row of seeds. Examples include peas, beans, lentils, soybeans and peanuts. Cultures around the world have used legumes as a staple food for thousands of years. Legumes are nutritious, have a long shelf life, and contribute flavor and texture to a meal. As more and more customers today demand healthful foods with flavor, commercial kitchens are making legumes an important part of their menus.

Legumes come in many different sizes, shapes and colors. There are dozens of types of legumes, each with a different texture and flavor.

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.