Whether as chefs, cake decorators, specialty food purveyors or caterers, ICE alumni are finding success in a plethora of different avenues in the food world. Check out just some of the alumni finding success and making recent headlines.

*Michelle Bommarito (Culinary ’97) and Alumni Hall of Achievement inductee Elisa Strauss (Pastry ’01) were named two of the 2011 Top Ten Cake Artists by Dessert Professional magazine.

*Alumni Hall of Achievement inductee Dan Segall (Culinary ’02) will be featured in a new Food Network Asia series, A Culinary Coup: The Launching of Ku De Ta, which follows the daunting task of developing this high-profile Singaporean restaurant’s menu and kitchen team, completely from scratch, within eight weeks.

*Alumni Hall of Achievement inductee Caryn Stabinsky’s (Pastry ’02) new venture, Loaf, was highlighted in the New York Times. Chef Caryn is also an ICE Chef Instructor.

*Allison Fishman (Culinary ’01) has published her first cookbook, You Can Trust A Skinny Cook. She was featured on the Today show on Monday, April 18, and on will be featured on The Early Show on Saturday, April 23. Allison is also a Chef Instructor in ICE’s recreational division.

*Kelly Senyei (Culinary ’10), Content Producer at Gourmet Live, visited Luke’s Lobster in the debut of Gourmet Live‘s Pic a Dish segment on NBC’s NY Nonstop Foodies.

To connect with these ICE alumni and many more, join ICE’s network on LinkedIn, or follow ICE on Facebook and Twitter.

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 career paths in the food world. DICED shares some of them with you in a reoccurring feature, “Unique Culinary Careers.”

ICE alum Allison Fishman is the author of the new book, You Can Trust a Skinny Cook. After graduating from ICE, she went on to work in test kitchens at Saveur, Martha Stewart and Food Network. She has also worked in TV and graduated from NYU’s food studies program. Her classes at ICE focus on healthy, delicious cooking using simple techniques. Fishman says, “It can be a bit confusing, this hodge podge food career. My dad is always trying to explain what I do in one sentence, but it doesn’t work that way. When you come down to it, I cook at home, write about home cooking, take pictures of food and teach others how to cook. I guess that’s my sentence.” We asked her to tell us some more about her career and the process of writing a cook book and working as a teacher in the industry.

What has your career path been like?
When I met with ICE Admissions Rep Linda Simon in 2001, prior to enrolling at ICE (then Peter Kump’s), she asked me why I wanted to go to culinary school. I told her that I was a terrible cook and I had no kitchen confidence, and many of my friends felt the same way. We were well educated, moving up in the corporate world, but had no idea what to do when it came to the kitchen. I knew there were a lot of women out there like me, and I wanted to help my generation become comfortable in the kitchen, and have fun doing it.

When I graduated, I went to work in the test kitchens that home cooks turned to, like Saveur, Martha Stewart and Food Network. I wanted to be a part of the kitchens were setting the tone for home cooking in America. As I worked in these kitchens, I was teaching in people’s home kitchens. This was the key part — the home kitchen is where the knife meets the cutting board, or more accurately the garlic meets the press. I taught, but I learned far more. I observed what home cooks needed and wanted. More…