Friday, Oct. 24, 2008

Culinary program offers real-life experience

Adam Imber became interested in cooking as an 8-year-old when he saw his father make an omelette.

“I scared my parents because the next day they came downstairs to see me trying to cook an omelette,” Imber said.

Now Imber hopes to turn a hobby into a career. The senior transferred to Olathe North High School for the culinary arts program, which has a gourmet restaurant called Les Arts Culinaire.

“Being in here is different from being everywhere else at school,” Imber said. “This really helps you for later in life because you are learning exactly what you are going to be doing in your career.”

The 6-year-old culinary arts program has given Olathe students a chance to work in a full-service kitchen and serve food in their own restaurant. Students have earned $76,000 worth of scholarships in the last two years, teacher Mike Chrostowski said.

“That’s huge,” Chrostowski said of students who may not have gone on to post-secondary education but now have the opportunity to attend top culinary schools.

Central to the training to get them to those schools is the program restaurant. It’s senior Haley Brandsgard’s favorite part of the program. She hopes to be a chef in a fine-dining restaurant.

“It’s hard to narrow it down, but I like prepping for banquets,” Brandsgard said.

Students in the program plan what menu items will be served in the restaurant and how they will be prepared. The prep work has been more challenging this year, Chrostowski said. Students are used to picking seasonal foods to keep within a budget (strawberries in the spring and pears in the fall), but food prices have increased exponentially even since last semester, he said. For the first time, the restaurant has had to set a minimum price for those who request meals, he said.

“The price of rice has gone up 400 percent in the last two years,” he said.

It’s been good training for students, though, he said. Students eventually will have a final project that includes pricing menus as though they were developing their future restaurants.

“Food costs are a big part of it,” Chrostowski said. “It’s been a challenge, and it’s been a learning curve for us...but our goal is to have these kids go off down the road and bump into them and they are running the show someplace.”

Reservations for Les Arts Culinaire are open for 6 p.m., 6:45 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Jan. 30, Feb. 27 and Apr. 24. The dinner includes an appetizer, entrée, dessert and beverage for $30 per person. Reservations may be made by calling 780-7057.

Submit an ad