By Carly DeFilippo
This week, the New York culinary community celebrated the 20th anniversary of Chefs Collaborative, the leading national nonprofit network of chefs invested in creating a more sustainable food landscape. ICE hosted the cookbook launch for the collaborative’s 2013 publication, featuring recipes from such renowned chefs as Dan Barber, Rick Bayless, Mary Sue Milliken, and Ethan Stowell.
Whether it’s aiding victims in the wake of Hurricane Sandy or supporting the day-to-day efforts of City Harvest, ICE has long been committed to contributing to the larger New York Community. But there are causes further afield that are also near and dear to our hearts, perhaps none so much as Streets International. Founded by former Culinary Management instructor Neal Bermas, this unique non-profit culinary training program teaches impoverished young Vietnamese men and women the life and professional skills they need to be employed in a 5-star culinary or hospitality setting.
Not too long ago, Susan Stockton, Senior Vice President, Culinary Production at Food Network, was a culinary arts student at ICE. I first met Ms. Stockton when she spoke about Food Network and Cooking Channel at the school in August 2012. As a recent graduate, I immediately began to imagine how inspiring it would be for current ICE students, prospective students, and other alumni to hear a bit more about her incredible journey, experiences, and accomplishments in the food industry.
When I contacted her to request an interview on behalf of ICE, Ms. Stockton graciously accepted. We met at the Food Network offices at Chelsea Market. Here’s what she had to say:
I’ve heard that you’ve had previous careers in film, as a florist, a caterer, and a graphic designer. What made you decided to make another career change and attend culinary school?
I had a 12-year-old graphic design firm based in Boston in the late 80’s. At that time, Boston was in a recession, much like we are now. Clients were cutting budgets left and right. I’d also just met my husband. It felt like a good time to jump start a new life with this new person—who had a new job offer in New York City!
The last thing you want to do is open up a New York design studio in a recession. That forced me to stop and ask myself what I wanted to do next. What made me happy? I’d had other careers, been schooled in fine arts and writing and had landed a job as an art director for a small film company. After a few years, I opened a tropical plant store in Boston with movie posters collected from that job and called it “Hollywood & Vine”. I always tell career-changing students, everything you learn from past careers can help you leverage your next career. Just be sure to follow your passion. So, that’s what I did.
I’d always loved cooking and entertaining. I got that from my family. Every get-together revolved around huge spreads of food. And I’d been casually catering dinner parties for friends in Boston and really enjoyed it. So when it came time to move to New York, I felt the desire to begin again.
Last night, ICE was thrilled to host the 11th annual Cookin’ with Allagash Scholarship competition. It was a wonderful night filled with great food, delicious beers and generous prizes!
“It’s a miracle of fat and flavor!” That’s the passion with which Chef Cara Tannenbaum welcomed our class to the wondrous world of butter. As the night went on, we tackled recipes of varying complexity and international flavor, but here are some essential tidbits we learned about this key ingredient for both chefs and bakers:
Whisk yeast into water, add flour and salt, then mix until smooth. That’s bread dough. Humble ingredients that—once combined, nurtured and baked—amount to much more than the sum of their parts.
Launching ICE’s new Techniques & Art of Professional Bread Baking program this spring, Chef Sim Cass explained to his students that creating bread is alchemy: the seemingly miraculous transformation of one thing into something better, like lead into gold or humble ingredients into crackling loaves.
By Carly DeFilippo
As we gear up to launch our new Techniques and Art of Professional Cake Decorating program on May 2nd, we are very excited to share one of Chef Toba Garrett‘s cake and icing recipes.
By Danamarie McKiernan
Finally, it came. My first day of culinary school. The night before, I ironed my uniform and organized my equipment in my new tool bag. My family took photos of me leaving the house with my white coat on a hanger and chef shoes in hand. That’s when the nervousness kicked in, and I felt the butterflies swimming in my stomach.
I had waited for this day for so long. I had no idea what to expect – and that was the most exciting part. My student advisor said we should arrive at ICE thirty minutes early. I’m a food nerd; I was there an hour early. I felt flushed as I walked off the elevator and hoped my cheeks’ pinkish tone was not too noticeable.
Last week, four members of the ICE New York team attended the International Association of Culinary Professional’s (IACP) annual conference in San Francisco. The organization, founded in 1987, boasts more than 3,000 members in 32 countries, ranging from chefs and culinary instructors to food media professionals, cookbook authors, culinary entrepreneurs and food policy advocates. It was a pleasure to see several dozen ICE alumni in attendance, and in particular, at least seven ICE alumni serving as speakers or resources at the event.
By Carly DeFilippo
ICE Chef Instructor Toba Garrett wasn’t always a master cake decorator, renowned for her unusually attractive, skilled and delicious confections. Her prior work experience spanned the fields of theatre, education and computer science, before she changed her life through culinary education. In her 20th year as a Chef Instructor at ICE, it could not be more fitting that Toba launch ICE’s brand new, 8-week professional development program: Techniques and Art of Professional Cake Decorating. We sat down with Toba to learn more about this exciting program and how she found her culinary voice.
