Courtesy of Christopher Ranch

Media scares over tainted Chinese products have led U.S. consumers to investigate how garlic is produced, resulting in a resurgence of domestic sources—which actually have greater cooking and health benefits.

Garlic is grown globally, and has become a critical flavor component for a variety of international cuisines. China has emerged as the world’s leading source, growing two-thirds of global supply. Even in the United States, where California-grown garlic is available year-round, Chinese garlic amounts to well over half of domestic supply. The International Trade Commission reports that Chinese garlic exports into the United States in 2009 alone totaled 145 million pounds.

Most California garlic production is centralized in Gilroy, Calif., known as “the garlic capital of the world.” Gilroy-based Christopher Ranch has been an industry leader since 1956, when founder Don Christopher started farming garlic with a planting of 10 acres. Today, his son, Bill, oversees cultivation of more than 3,000 acres and shipment of more than 60 million pounds annually, distinguishing the ranch as the nation’s premier grower for the fresh market and the only commercial source of heirloom garlic.

By Dr. Fred Mayo, CHE, CHT

Thinking carefully about who should be involved in revising the curriculum will help everyone know his and her role. It is an important way to move the process forward and collect as many ideas at the beginning and consult about proposals at the end.

In the last two Clinics, we reviewed the challenges of evaluating student performance, a task that is critical for student learning. Another aspect of ensuring successful graduates involves providing the best program for them, which raises the question of how we examine our curricula and make changes to improve courses and whole programs.

In this Clinic, we will discuss overall curriculum revision; in a later one, we shall review making course changes. Having just gone through more than two years of full revision of two undergraduate degrees and three graduate degrees at NYU, I have a lot of empathy for people undertaking the task. However, it can be a creative and insightful activity, and one that makes a real difference in the quality and effectiveness of programs.

By Audrey Heckwolf

Culinary students love learning tableside, and guests will become committed patrons if we treat them to dinner and a show.

The art of tableside service is near extinct. Few restaurants offer fresh preparations performed at a guest’s table. It seems to be isolated to cruise ships, French restaurants, catering and Sunday brunches. It is incredibly challenging to even find reliable sources on the subject that date more recent than the 1970s.

By Adam Weiner

Says Chef Weiner, with summer here, it’s time to look at your curriculum, look at your syllabus, look at your lesson plans, and see what you can do to make sure you teach the basics your students need to get and keep a job.

My program runs year 'round. I have new students starting and senior students graduating every month. I envy my friends whose classes have summer breaks. It would be great to have some off time to review what happened in the previous class term: what went well, and what needed improvement. I would then take these points and modify my course curriculum, changing what didn’t work, and strengthen what did.

607 colleges and universities nationwide competed to reduce, reuse and recycle

Every spring, students across the country become RecycleManiacs, competing for national supremacy to determine which school can reduce, reuse and recycle the most campus waste. The Denver campus of Johnson & Wales University recently received accolades for recycling nearly 42 pounds of food waste (on a per-capita basis) from any other competing college or university.