Hill’s Kitchen

Students are busy putting the final touches on their internship documentation as well as preparing for Friday’s scholarship event that will be held at Bridge View Center.  We’ve selected four scholarship recipients and I’ll post images and information from the event this weekend.

Meanwhile here’s a few of the latest images from Hill’s Kitchen!

When we were in Spain last November I had the good fortune to meet and work with a young culinary student from Denmark by the name of Patrick Godborg.  I wanted to share a few images of his work and a brief introduction from Patrick himself.  Very talented chef!

I am a 21 year old chef student from Denmark, I have about 8 months left of my education. The most important thing in my work is the use of fresh natural ingredients and to follow the different seasons; if it’s not in season, you just don’t use it.  I like to mess with people’s senses, and bring old classics back, but twist them so you don’t see what it is, but when you taste it, it’ll bring you back to your childhood memories.  I get my ideas every where i go, take a stroll at the beach, park or forrest. open my mind to input from the feeling of the leaves, the smell of the ground, the ocean, like you saw in my tapas, I served on wood, I had wooden spoons, “fake soil”(malt Crumble) and my dry ice “smoke” with the smell of pine wood and seaweed. If there’s more you want to know, please tell me and let’s start planning a visit to your school, I have a lot of things I would like to show your students, and tell them about the ideas and rules of Nordic cuisine.

We’d love to have you visit as well.  Let’s start talking about ways that we can raise money to help this young man visit the U.S. for the very first time!  Check out where Patrick works here: http://www.nimb.dk/

Our Peruvian luncheon for International Cuisine was a great success as our students once again went out of their way to create a great series of courses for our guests.  Later, Chef David Jensen, CEC from Iowa Health Services stopped by to carve up a couple of blocks of ice for our students.  The weather was perfect and all we had to do was cut out a couple of blocks from the local snow drifts!

Take a look at some of the images we captured from both events!

Persons who would like to experience a multi-course gourmet dinner to benefit students in Indian Hills Community College’s culinary arts program can purchase tickets beginning Monday January, 11 at 8 am.  The American Culinary Federation of Southeast Iowa is partnering with the IHCC culinary arts program for the fourth annual dinner at the Bridge View Center in Ottumwa on Friday, January 29.

The evening will begin at 6 p.m. with assorted hot and cold hors d‘oeuvres by IHCC culinary staff Mary Kivlahan and Mark Fisher.  After the guests have been seated at their tables at 6:30, wild mushroom bisque by Chef Benjamin Whitmore, CEC from Bridge View Center in Ottumwa, will follow.  The main entrée of roasted beef tenderloin sauce marchand du vin served with pommes Dauphine and bacon wrapped haricot verts will be served by Chef Scott Turley from Grinnell College in Grinnell Iowa.  The other courses will be prepared by a host of local American Culinary Federation chefs and are sure to bring a great balance to the main course.  Tony Gross from Johnson Brothers /Iowa Wine and Beverage will be on hand to discuss the wine offerings and help pour as well!  Special thanks to Sysco Food Services of Iowa and Hawkeye Foodservice Distribution for donating product to this event.

Tickets are $50.00 and go on sale Monday January 11 and are available by contacting the Indian Hills Culinary Arts program at (641) 683-5197.  Persons can also send an email to grader@indianhills.edu.  Tables of 10 are available.  

Several outstanding Indian Hills culinary students will be awarded scholarships during the evening event.

I’ve been busy with the new house and program review over the last few weeks so new posts have been scarce.  Looking forward to the last 6 weeks of the winter term and a new class for the spring.  The present class will be moving on to internships and the spring will bring a lot of movement in recruiting so before we get bogged down in events for 2010, here’s a look at some images from our last dinner right before Christmas break!

Wishing all of you a fantastic new year!

Hope everyone had a great holiday season with family and friends!  The weather has certainly put a ‘crimp’ in activities over the past couple of months and I’m sure we’re all looking forward to at least a ‘glimpse’ of some spring weather soon!  Some important news to share with you this month so we’re using a new plugin for Wordpress to send out our newsletter.  If you come across any glitches, we’d appreciate you letting us know so we can correct the problem!

Subchapter News

Chef Scott Turley, CEC from Grinnell College has taken the reigns as president of our new ACF subchapter!  The weather postponed our meeting for January so our next meeting date will take place on Tuesday February, 16 at Riverside Casino in Riverside Iowa at 6 pm.  Chef Matt Meadows has some great information concerning his establishment’s upcoming hosting of Iowa’s first ACF sanctioned culinary competition.  Hope you can be there for this one!  http://acfofiowa.org/subchapter

ACF of Iowa News

The ACF of Iowa’s Annual Awards Banquet will take place this coming Sunday, January 10th at 6pm at Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse in West Des Moines.  Tickets are $40.00 per person.  Hope you’ve voted for your favorite award candidates and that you plan to attend this event!  We’re all busy but this will be a great opportunity to get reaquainted and discuss the coming year’s activities.  http://acfofiowa.org

IHCC Scholarship Dinner

Tickets go on sale Monday morning at 8am for Indian Hills Community College’s Fourth Annual Scholarship Dinner.  In the past we’ve asked your help in bringing product and preparing a course with our scholarship recipients.  This year we’ve recieved donations from both Sysco and Hawkeye and we’ll be creating the menu, so all you’ll really need to do is drop by for the afternoon and help us serve!  Now if any of you would like to come down for the day and work with our students, by all means do!  This would be a great benefit for our students and they’d love to see you!  Otherwise, make plans to attend to help support financially the students of our culinary program.  Tickets are $50.00 per person and can be purchased by calling Chef Gordon Rader at 641.683.5313 or email me at grader@indianhills.edu.  Tony Gross from Johnson Brothers will be pouring the wine and it sounds like we have some interesting choices this year!  Our music department is working on bringing in a band again this year for your dancing pleasure so please be sure to attend!

ACF of Iowa Website

If anyone from the ACF of Iowa Chapter would like to take control of the chapter Website, please contact me.  The hosting is paid up for another year and it just requires someone to update chapter information.  I’d be happy to give you the keys to the controls!  http://acfofiowa.org

Wishing all of you the best this year!

See you Sunday evening!

Gordon

Now that the blizzard is in full swing here in Iowa and I can’t get out, thought it would be a good time to share a few more images from my latest group of students.  Their first international lucheon went of spectacularly and we’ve been working with various products and techniques as well as giving them some culinary challenges to help reinforce what we’ve covered as well as push them into new areas of technique.

This is a great group that I have right now.  They work really well together and take things seriously so its a real pleasure for me to be able to work with them.  Looking forward to 3 more luncheons over the coming three months.  We’ll keep those new images coming!  KEEP WARM!