Green

Dean Koetke Vies for Inaugural Pathfinder Award from Chefs Collaborative

Amber, Monday, August 30th, 2010 | Category: Around Town, Green | Permalink | Email this
tagged: awards, Chefs Collaborative, Christopher Koetke, School of Culinary Arts

Congratulations to Chef Christopher Koetke, C.E.C., C.C.E., dean of the School of Culinary Arts! He’s a candidate for the first-ever Sustainability Awards presented by Chefs Collaborative based in Cambridge, Mass. Chefs Collaborative is the leading nonprofit network of chefs that fosters a sustainable food system through advocacy, education and collaboration with the broader food community.

Chefs Collaborative will honor a single individual in each of three categories during the organization’s awards dinner at Allandale Farm in Boston on Oct. 4. Koetke is a candidate for the Pathfinder award, which recognizes a visionary working in the greater food community who has been a catalyst for positive change within the food system through efforts that go beyond the kitchen.

Sustainability is woven throughout Kendall College’s curricula and the school’s operational practices. In 2007, Kendall was the recipient of the Green Award presented by Foodservice Consultants Society International (FCSI), the first ever presented to a culinary-training program. In 2008, thanks to Koetke’s leadership, Kendall expanded its sustainability commitment to provide education on this critical issue to the broader foodservice industry. Today, Koetke is a well-known expert on the subject and speaks frequently at regional and national industry conferences.

Here’s wishing Dean Koetke the best of luck! Click here for more information on Chefs Collaborative’s National Summit, Oct. 3-5 at Bunker Hill College in Boston.

School of Culinary Arts and CAFE Present 2010 Green Award

Amber, Friday, August 13th, 2010 | Category: Around Town, Green | Permalink | Email this
tagged: awards, School of Culinary Arts

Kendall College’s School of Culinary Arts and the Center for the Advancement of Foodservice Education (CAFÉ) presented the 2010 CAFÉ/Kendall Green Award to Faith Jennetta, program coordinator and baking instructor for the Technology Center of DuPage (TCD), a high school located in Addison, Illinois. The award was presented at the CAFÉ Leadership Conference held in Baltimore at the end of June.

The CAFÉ/Kendall Green Award is the first-ever, national award to recognize national secondary and postsecondary culinary arts and baking/pastry programs for their commitment to sustainability.

Chef Jennetta donated her $1,000 prize for the creation of a scholarship for a TCD student who wants to continue his or her education at Kendall College. Kendall College announced it will match the donation, bringing the total scholarship to $2,000.

Chef Jennetta was recognized for her tilapia aquaculture project at TCD. An interdepartmental learning experience that includes both culinary and landscape students, the program provides practical experience in aquaculture, fish butchery and cookery. The entire program is taught under the school’s guiding principle, “Be respectful of food, the environment and each other.”

Koetke Leads NRA Panel on Food Sustainability

Amber, Sunday, July 11th, 2010 | Category: Around Town, Green | Permalink | Email this
tagged: Christopher Koetke, School of Culinary Arts

Kendall College’s School of Culinary Arts was in the spotlight this year at the National Restaurant Association’s NRA Show 2010, May 22 – 25. Dean Christopher Koetke, who has become a nationally recognized authority on sustainability in the foodservice industry, led an educational session entitled, “Are Sourcing Local AND Sustainable Food Mutually Exclusive?” Joining him were Rick Bayless, chef-restaurateur, author and television personality; Steve Schimoler, chef-restaurateur, innovator and well-known locavore; and Dan Rosenthal, founder of the Green Chicago Restaurant Co-op.

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Kendall Hosts Chefs Collaborative Summit

Amber, Thursday, September 24th, 2009 | Category: Featured, Green, Inside Kendall | Permalink | Email this
tagged: Chefs Collaborative, events, School of Culinary Arts, sustainability

With a theme of “Bringing Sustainability to the Table,” Chefs Collaborative’s National Summit was held at Kendall College, Sept. 15-16, drawing chefs and media nationwide with a commitment to ecological sustainability in foodservice to the campus for the Boston-based nonprofit’s 2009 meeting. Keynoter Rick Bayless of Frontera Grill and Topolobampo fame broke away from his new restaurant, XOCO, to stress the importance of small, sustainable, family-owned businesses to the lifeblood of a town or neighborhood to an enthusiastic audience of nearly 150.

Besides plenary sessions on such topics as “Looking at Our ‘Carbon Footprint’: Food Choices and Climate Change,” the Summit hosted a sustainable-seafood reception at Shedd Aquarium and a tour of and lunch at Green City Market. But the biggest outcome from the two days was the advance news by Ann Wright, deputy undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, of a new federal initiative called “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food.”

“Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” is designed to support local and regional food systems through such initiatives as a farm-school program that would make it easier for schools to use federal dollars from the 2008 Farm Bill to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables from local farms, and allowing select state-inspected operations to ship meat and poultry across state lines, widening the market for small-farm operations.

Culinary Students Embark on Second Annual “Farm to Table” Trip at SIU

Amber, Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 | Category: Around Town, Green | Permalink | Email this
tagged: School of Culinary Arts, students, sustainability

Kendall College has again partnered with Southern Illinois University’s School of Agriculture in Carbondale, Illinois to create an exciting week-long farm-to-table seminar for our culinary bachelor’s degree students. From September 7 – 11, seven students will travel to Carbondale with Kendall faculty to experience firsthand how raw product is grown, raised, harvested and processed for consumption. With an emphasis on sustainability, organics and the richness of the Midwestern farm, students will tour dairy, beef and swine farms, as well as visit a slaughterhouse. They will experience the latest developments in vermiculture (worm composting), aquaculture (farm-raised fish), and viticulture (wine-making). Students will also tour two organic produce farms, forage for wild mushrooms with a fungus expert and learn about advancements in modern soybean production.

By night the group will be housed at a local working farm, the “Green Retreat,” and be able to grill their own meals on the farm’s open barbeque pit. While there, the Kendall group will prepare an al fresco dinner for 100 guests using ingredients from a local farm, as well as agricultural school products. The meal will be served to the greater Carbondale community in a barn on campus. The week will conclude with a multi-course vineyard dinner at nearby Hedman’s Winery, one of Southern Illinois’ American Viticultural Area vintners (Illinois’ first designated wine “appellation”).