When ICE President Rick Smilow and Anne E. McBride wrote Culinary Careers: How to Get Your Dream Job in Food they discovered a plethora of food jobs they had never heard of before. Since the book’s release, they have been discovering even more interesting culinary career paths. DICED shares some of them with you in a reoccurring feature: “Unique Culinary Careers.”
We’ve already met some professionals who have dedicated their passion for the culinary arts to helping others learn to cook or find careers in the restaurant world. But there are also careers that put a passion for food to work helping to feed the hungry. Ed Debiec, a 2006 ICE Culinary Arts alum, is the Demonstration Chef at the Desert Mission Food Bank, a part of the John C. Lincoln Health Network in Phoenix, Arizona. There, he helps educate the food bank’s clients about nutrition and cooking to promote healthy eating. Debiec graduated from the ICE program when he was 62 years old and has gone on to find a career than makes him in his own words “a truly happy man.” After he stopped by to catch up with his old Chef Instructors a few weeks ago, we asked him about his line of work and what it means to him.
How would you describe your job?
The Demonstration Chef’s job is varied, challenging and interesting. Mainly, the job is to deliver nutrition education to clients and students — presenting recipes, providing samples for clients to taste, delivering outreach programs to schools and community centers, cooking demonstrations, serving as a resource, quality control, healthy eating and sanitation all make up the chef’s job. More…