Best of military foodservice members attend CIA education program

During the third annual Armed Forces Forum for Culinary Excellence, 21 top Air Force Airmen and four Marines from around the world were selected to spend the week of Oct. 3 to 10 refining and expanding their culinary skills at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) at Greystone, St. Helena, Calif., working under CIA chefs Thomas Wong and Victor Scargle. This annual forum is sponsored by the Hennessy Travelers Association Educational Foundation. The 25 Airmen and Marines were selected during their service's foodservice excellence evaluation program--the John L. Hennessey Awards Program for the Air Force, the Major General W.P. T. Hill Award for the Marine Corp and the Senior Master Sergeant Kenneth Disney Award for the Air National Guard.

(l to r) Air Force Senior Airman Clabirel Najera-Torres and Marine Corporal Michael Williams

During the forum, the students attended lectures in the morning followed by intensive hands-on preparation of complex recipes in the Greystone kitchens, which were then critiqued by the CIA chefs. At the end of the week, the Airmen and Marines were each awarded diplomas. For more information on the event, visit www.hennessyaward.org.

(l to r) Hennessy Travelers Association president Carmen Anthony Vacalebre, Air Force Senior Airman Angel Ramirez and CIA chef Thomas Wong

Delmar releases latest book in Kitchen Pro Series

Delmar Cengage Learning has published Poultry: Identification, Fabrication and Utilization, by chef Thomas Schneller, the third book in the Kitchen Pro Series from The Culinary Institute of America (CIA).
Poultry describes both time-honored and state-of-the-art methods of identifying species and cuts, purchasing, fabricating and storing of a wide range of poultry ranging from domestically raised turkey and duck to quail, poussin and wild birds. This full-color, hard-bound text is designed for culinary students, instructors, chefs, foodservice managers, purchasing agents, suppliers, vendors, retailers and food enthusiasts. It demonstrates basic preparation methods and tested recipes reflecting classic and contemporary cooking in a step-by-step format.

For culinary instructors, each subject component in the Kitchen Pro Series comes with an instructor's manual, which provides review and test questions, course outline, teaching tips and guidelines, objectives and key terms. The first two books published in the Kitchen Pro Series were Fish and Seafood and Meat. Schneller, an associate professor at the CIA, also wrote Meat. The final three books in the series will be released later this year and next. For more information, visit www.culinary.delmar.com.