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Spicing up the food scene
Chef Jim Alexander has several in the kitchen at his SouthPark restaurant, Zebra. Jim Noble has eight or nine in his kitchens at Rooster's and Noble's.They're behind the counter at Cafe Monte on Fairview and behind the scenes at every food event from Charlotte Shout to farm dinners.Call them Charlotte's favorite cooking tool. They're culinary students -- mostly young, eager and ambitious, charged up like KitchenAid mixers plugged into a lightning bolt."They work 45, 50 hours a week for me and they take a full load at school," says Alexander. "These are the ones that are going to make it."Six years ago, a group of public and private officials came up with a multimillion-dollar bundle of incentives to get Johnson & Wales University, a Providence, R.I.-based business and culinary school, to build a campus in uptown.Today, J&W's Charlotte campus graduates its first four-year class, a group of 1,613 that includes more than 380 who arrived as freshmen and move on with bachelor's degrees.If surveys of last year's graduates are any indication, 79 percent will stay in the South and 60 percent will stay in Charlotte. They'll become a part of a food scene that is very different from what it was when they got here."When we opened (in 2001), it was a crabcake and steak town," says Alexander. "Now, people are becoming more wine and food savvy, they're less intimidated. They understand and get the concept of sustainable agriculture, local food, indigenous food, and that's right up our alley."No one says the university was the only cause of that. But it was a big ingredient.Charlotte's focus on foodBob Boll, director of hospitality education at Central Piedmont Community College, likes to call Charlotte "the culinary-school capital of the free world."Citing food-focused programs at CPCC, J&W and the Art Institute of Charlotte, he gets excited by the sheer number of students focused on culinary training."Name a town that has that many culinary schools," he says. "I travel to Denver, I travel to San Francisco. They can't keep pace with what Charlotte's producing."J&W attracted plenty of attention when it announced it would close campuses in Norfolk, Va., and Charleston and build a new facility in Charlotte. The new campus attracted so many students from all over the country that it had to increase first-year enrollment from 850 to 1,200. The school has settled into a current student body of 2,300."That changes a community," says Michael Smith, president of Charlotte Center City Partners. "They spill out into our hotels and our restaurants and our businesses."Just the presence of that many people looking for jobs in the culinary field will have repercussions."An economist will always tell you that growth depends on skilled labor and capital," says John Silvia, chief economist for Wachovia who also is involved in several uptown organizations."To be mercenary about the whole thing, what Johnson & Wales does for us is give us skilled workers in leisure and hospitality. Better waiters, better cooks, eventually better chefs."The business of cookingOf course, these are student cooks. No one expects young alumni to open restaurants next week. They don't even have the skills to -- not yet, anyway.That's what culinary education is all about. Bruce Moffett, chef/owner of Barrington's on Fairview, has worked with students at his restaurant, at events like Charlotte Shout and through his side job teaching at the Art Institute."They know the basics," he says. And when he got out of school, at the Culinary Institute of America, that's about what he knew."I knew what a fine dice was, I knew how to brunoise" he says. "But all the stuff I really learned was the stuff you don't use for five or six years."The important thing about a culinary education isn't learning how to cook, it's learning to make a living at it."Students come out with a basic understanding, but it takes awhile to develop your own style and to figure out what kind of chef you want to be. But if you have the degree, you have the basic understanding to appreciate it when you see it."That's what separates you from the guys who didn't go to cooking school."Oh, the places they'll goSo if new graduates won't have the money to open restaurants right away, what does come next? For one thing, students who don't stay have been heading out to the nation's restaurant cities, like New York and Chicago, with Charlotte's name on their resumes."It's not so much that Charlotte has a different place on the culinary map," says New York-based restaurant consultant Clark Wolf. "It's that nobody would raise an eyebrow now when you say you went to school in Charlotte."People accept the study of food anywhere. And they are starting to hear about the culinary school in Charlotte."Boll isn't looking for the Charlotte graduate who opens a hot restaurant, he says. What he's watching for are the hot young chefs in other cities who are looking for a place to make their mark."Charlotte can start to look very attractive," he says. "It's a city with lots of banks and three culinary schools, two on the university level."Many in the restaurant world say the real boost of J&W has been to draw attention to the fact that there is a restaurant world.Alex Myrick, owner of the restaurants Blue and Table, says customers constantly ask about the students, and that's a good thing."People start to realize, `Oh, people go to school to be a chef?' " he said.Everyone involved in Charlotte's food scenes expects these changes to keep picking up momentum. Look at Charlotte four years from now and you'll see more of everything."It's much like watching your children grow," says Center City Partners' Michael Smith. "You don't recognize it unless you look away for a little while. But Johnson & Wales has changed our city."Where do they go?Johnson & Wales University says 98 percent of students have jobs within 60 days. For the Charlotte campus, the rate is 99 percent. Here are the top 20 employers, based on a 2006-07 survey of Charlotte graduates. 1. Marriott International.2. Compass Group North America. (Charlotte-based food management and hospitality company. Owns the Levy Restaurants, corporate dining services.)3. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide.4. Harper's Restaurant Group.5. Kiawah Island Golf Resort.6. Ballantyne Resort.7. ARAMARK. (Food service and facilities management company with clients in 19 countries.)8. Hilton Hotels.9. RARE Hospitality International. (Owned by Orlando, Fla.-based Darden Restaurants, the world's largest full-service restaurant company. Brands include Capital Grille, Longhorn, Red Lobster and Olive Garden.)10. Limited Brands. (Parent company of Victoria's Secret, White Barn Candle Co., CO Bigelow, Bath & Body Works and Henri Bendel.)Impact on CharlotteLike a whole potato dropped in a pot of vichyssoise, Johnson & Wales University has made a splash all over Charlotte. Here are some of the impacts over the past four years. FinancialWhen the J&W deal was announced in the Gateway Village atrium in 2002, city officials predicted the campus would generate $60 million in economic activity by 2007.By the time the campus opened two years later, the expectation was $80 million a year in economic impact. Economic impact is a complicated number that looks at everything from capital spending and staff salaries to money spent by students, staff and visitors on everything from meals and clothes to hotel rooms.The final figure, cited in a 2006 independent study commissioned by the university: $100 million a year.CookingOne of the biggest surprises has been Charlotte's eagerness to tie on aprons. The campus's public cooking class, Chef's Choice, has gotten the attention of the rest of the J&W system. The campus in Denver is starting one; the North Miami campus had canceled one but may restart it.As director of community outreach, Bernice Parenti was put in charge of starting Chef's Choice when campus officials noticed how many people were asking for it. "We weren't planning to do anything," she says. "What drove it was the demand."Since 2004, the school has offered 264 classes with a total of 5,462 participants, although many people have taken more than one class.CharityThe impact hasn't just been in the for-profit world. The university has become a major player in community organizations.Students are required to do at least 10 hours of community service before they graduate, part of a mandatory leadership class. In addition, every campus organization has to have a service component, and faculty and staff have service requirements, too.That's a lot of unpaid labor -- 13,372 community service hours in the 2006-07 academic year, according to a university report that valued the time, at $18.77 per hour, at $250,992.
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There's more than cooking
It's hard to miss all those kids in kitchen whites.Johnson & Wales University may call itself "America's Career University," but it's the emphasis on culinary that draws attention.Still, there are 458 other students who want you to know they're there. They're students in the business school -- a major component of the university -- and they feel a little ignored."I feel red-headed and abandoned," jokes Roland Sparks, chair of the Charlotte campus's College of Business."Our culinary school is probably one of the best in the world. We have recruiters from all over the world who come to get our students. If (the business college) had a reputation like that, we'd be the greatest business school in the world."But there's plenty to shout about in the business school, Sparks says. Starting last year, they eliminated associate's degrees for business programs and started concentrating more on academics, to prepare students for graduate school.The business college offers bachelor's degrees in specialty programs -- management accounting and fashion merchandising/retail marketing -- and general programs in management and marketing.Another aspect of the business training focuses on entrepreneurs. That can overlap with the culinary programs, too. A student who wants to open a restaurant, for instance, can take business classes in things like how to raise capital.Sparks finds that the creative side is the fun part of his school. Some students have opened businesses before they even graduate. One accounting student already has a thriving business growing herbs he sells to restaurants.On the culinary and hospitality management sides, the university puts an emphasis on professional behavior, with a strict dress code and penalties for things like skipping class or showing up late. The business school follows that standard, too.This is Sparks' fourth university, and he says he notices how that emphasis on work ethic permeates the campus."It's just the professionalism. You can walk up to a student and they'll talk to you. They're well-spoken."Where are they now?Since 2004, the Observer has written about students in the culinary and baking programs at Johnson & Wales University. We checked in with several: Andrew Wright, 22In 2004, we wrote about Andrew and his relationship with the woman who taught him to cook, his adopted "grandmother" Jennie Leath.WHAT HE DIDWhile working on his bachelor's degree in food service management, he worked for several years in the kitchens at Sonoma Modern American.Last summer, he branched into wine, taking a sommelier's course in a study-abroad program that took him to Germany, Switzerland, France and Austria.WHAT HE'S DOINGAfter graduating early in February, Wright set his sights on one of the best restaurants in the country, The French Laundry in Napa Valley, owned by chef Thomas Keller.He went to California on vacation, and got invited for a "stage" -- a kitchen tryout -- where he worked 22 hours over two days. He also took a cooking test, where he was given eggs, duck breast and two lobster tails. He made a mushroom hash with a sunny-side-up egg, avocado carpaccio with a poached egg, Peking duck breast and butter-poached lobster with a fava bean and pea puree.Early this month, he accepted a job as a commis, or prep cook. He'll work from 5:30 a.m. until 3 or 4 p.m. six days a week, getting things ready for more than 40 chefs who run the kitchen."I learned a lot in two days. But it's hard to do that kind of intensity. It's great food, but only a select few can do that kind of food. I'm going in to learn techniques, so when I do open my own place, I know the proper way to do things."His adopted grandmother, Jennie Leath, is delighted, he says. While he was waiting for the call, she told him, " `You know, everything you've ever wanted, you've gotten, because you've worked hard. Why should this be any different?' The next day, they called. So she was right."Cynthia Yazdani, 48WHAT SHE DIDOwner of the restaurant Pastarrific with her husband, Mehrdad, Yazdani commuted every week from Kokomo, Ind., to get her associate's degree in culinary arts.WHAT SHE'S DOINGYazdani is still in Kokomo at Pastarrific, where they've expanded and added banquet service. She also uses her knowledge of how chefs approach teaching to work with local high school culinary students.She's still keeping up with her education. She's going to the French Culinary Institute in New York soon for a two-day course in sous vide, an advanced poaching technique.She doesn't regret her rigorous schedule of flying between cities every week while she operated the restaurant. "I had a ball. I was a floppy disk in Charlotte, just soaking it all up."She still has a Charlotte salt shaker and a collection of Charlotte coffee cups."I sprinkle Charlotte on my salad and if I want Charlotte next to me, I have a cup of hot chocolate."Cherie Nunley, 26When the campus first opened, the Observer followed Nunley through her first semester as a baking and pastry student.WHAT SHE DIDShe got her associate's degree in baking in November 2004. And she became Cherie Nunley Dimmick after marrying firefighter Fields Dimmick.WHAT SHE'S DOINGShe's a manager at PetSmart in Concord, the mother of a daughter, Lucy, and she's expecting a second child in November.The hours involved in professional baking didn't work for her as a working mother, she says."I still do cakes and stuff on the side," she said. "But my final semester, I got a part-time job at PetSmart to do something different. They offered me a management position, and I've been there ever since."She misses baking, she says, but she keeps her hand in, helping in her mother's catering business in Virginia and making wedding and birthday cakes for friends. And she's looking forward to October, when she'll make Lucy's first birthday cake."I'm excited about that. I'm already thinking what I'm going to do for her."
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