As final exams go, this was a particularly tasty one. Tables lined the walls of a conference room at KSU Center, a mile from the main campus of Kennesaw State University. At each table, one of the 14 students in KSU's College of Professional Education 2018-2019 Culinary Apprenticeship Certificate program proudly offered samples of their original recipes, or of dishes made from recipes they found and tweaked.
Family and friends strolled by each table, nibbling and chatting, while chef and culinary instructor Robert Gerstenecker sampled each dish. The night marked the final event of the eight-month program, and Gerstenecker would be grading each student on the dish and its presentation, including how they decorated the table. Each student had been given $85 to create a dish. They had to develop (or tweak) their recipe, cost out the ingredients, do the shopping, prepare the dish, and then plate it for up to 60 guests.
At one table, Alonso Fuentes was offering his mother’s recipe for Montezuma shrimp and rice. Next to Fuentes, Tamia Flemister was serving her own vegan recipes for “lobster” mac and cheese and barbecue “pork” sliders. Further along, Stephanie Skolnick was serving her take on Brazilian street food, with plates of acarajé (black-eyed pea fritters) topped with vatapá (shrimp sauce), caruru (okra sauce) and green tomato salsa.
Flemister has a day job, working in human resources for a law firm. For the past eight months, she’s also been attending Gerstenecker’s weekly four-hour classes in the KSU professional catering kitchen, passing class quizzes and the National Restaurant Association’s ServSafe exam on safe food handling practices, and completing four apprenticeships, or stages, at local Atlanta restaurants, hotel kitchens and caterers.
“Food has always been my love,” Flemister said, “and people are always asking me to cook for them. But, it’s one thing to know how to cook a dish, and it’s another to understand the technique behind it.”
Her goal is to own her own restaurant.
“For me, the best part has been chef Robert,” she said. “He not only shows us the techniques we need to understand, but he shares his experience as an executive chef. I apprenticed at the Waldorf Astoria Atlanta Buckhead and at Proof of the Pudding.”
It was in Proof of the Pudding’s kitchen that she learned how much she enjoyed the pace of catering.
Skolnick has been keeping the same demanding pace, while doing her day job in marketing for an HVAC firm. Meeting Patrick Gebrayel, a butcher who demonstrated breaking down a whole pig, led to her apprenticeship at his Marietta butcher shop, Heywood Provisions, and a newfound passion.
“The program focuses on teaching what you need to know if you’re going to be in a restaurant kitchen,” Skolnick said. “Chef Robert designed a program that really teaches us what we need to know as chefs. Then, the apprenticeships let us stretch our wings, and get experience in professional kitchens.”
The classwork is more than just learning cooking techniques, like mastering roux and sauces. Gerstenecker explains how to choose recipes, figure the cost and work within a budget.
“Because we have small classes, we can tailor our program to the individual,” Gerstenecker said. “Not everybody needs to be an executive chef. One of our students, Venkata Nekkanti, wants to own multiple restaurants. He’s here to understand what it’s like to work in the kitchen. We teach our students how kitchens operate and function, and what skills are really needed.”
Back at the event, Joseph Cruz was serving food from his home in the Philippines, including lumpia (pork-filled egg rolls).
Tyler Lemen wanted to offer an unusual take on tapas, so he made the smoked salmon tartlet from a new cookbook, “The Complete Irish Pub.”
Jared Thornton had baked dozens of small homemade pitas, which he filled with braised lamb shanks and topped with a Greek salad garnish.
James Green, a veteran looking to up his cooking game, served ribs, deviled eggs and mac and cheese.
Evie Osazee served slices of pear tart, perhaps influenced by her apprenticeship at the Four Seasons Hotel.
And Nekkanti, the student who plans to own a line of restaurants? He was offering kabab Lahore — minced lamb wrapped around bamboo skewers and grilled, served with his own tweaked versions of three chutneys. “This program has really helped me understand American kitchens,” he said.
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