On this episode, you'll hear from instructors and former students about what the Culinary Arts Program entails and how it's helped propel these students into successful culinary careers. Lincoln's mission is to provide superior education and training to our students for in-demand careers in a supportive, accessible learning environment, transforming students' lives and adding value to their communities. Careers in Culinary Arts Podcast 00:00:03 Chef Leslie Silva, Lincoln Culinary Institute Graduate and Chef de Partie: Doing the program definitely prepared me for the real life experience that I would have in the kitchen. 00:00:12 Chef Peter Crouth, Lincoln Culinary Institute Instructor: You'll learn everything from knife skills to sanitation, teamwork with other students and hands-on training. You'll cover everything literally from soup to nuts. 00:00:24 Chef Derek Dugan, Lincoln Culinary Institute Graduate and Executive Chef: If you're going to go, go for the passion, go because you want to learn. There is a bevy of knowledge and there are some fantastic instructors within the program. They can teach you a lot of lot of great things. Go in with an open mind. Don't think you know everything. 00:00:43 Chef Pauli Milotte, Senior Culinary Recruiter for the Walt Disney Company: Lincoln has not just taught the same old brigade of cooking and plating. “This is the way we learned it, and that's the way you're going to learn it.” They have modernized the steps and the adjunct instructors and the chef instructors have kept up with the industry very well. 00:00:54 Host: Welcome to the official podcast of Lincoln Tech. Lincoln Tech's mission is to provide superior education and training to our students for in-demand careers in a supportive, accessible learning environment, transforming students’ lives, and adding value to their communities. On this episode, we'll find out more about the Culinary Arts program from instructors, employers and former students. So let's get cooking. 00:01:15 Silva: My name is Leslie Silva. I am a chef de partie at Pineapples and Pearls in Washington D.C., and I graduated from Lincoln Culinary Institute back in May of 2022. 00:01:30 Chef Shamal “Shimmy” Watkins, Lincoln Culinary Institute Graduate and Chef de Partie: My name is Shamal Watkins. I actually go by Chef Shimmy. I graduated from Lincoln Tech in September, but I actually finished in March. I work right now at the University of Maryland as chef de partie, or assistant chef. So it's a fun transition that I had. I actually started my externship in January, and by the time I finished my externship, I was looked at as a candidate to become a full time cook. I then became a chef in July. It was a quick transition from one position to another to another. 00:02:11 Crouth: I’m Chef Pete Crouth and I am a chef instructor at Lincoln Culinary Institute in Shelton, Connecticut. My background - I've been doing this going on 40 years. I co-authored an award-winning children's nutrition book titled The Green Box League of Nutritious Justice. I also won a national recipe contest, the grand prize winner of the Louisiana Sweet Potato Recipe contest. And I won a grand prize for my BLT sweet potato hash, which was bacon, leeks and tomato. We won't go on from there, but that's enough, right? 00:02:48 Host: That sounds delicious. I wish you could go on, but we'll talk more about food in a second. So, Leslie and Shamal, what are your stories about making the decision to enroll in the culinary arts program at Lincoln Tech? 00:02:58 Silva: It was just kind of pursuing culinary, I think. I originally took the traditional route after high school of going to four year college, and I wanted to major in food science and nutrition. And then I kind of figured, well, this would be a lot more fun if I got the fundamentals of culinary down. I did my research from there and fell in love with the idea of working with food and fine dining and how much of an art it is. I thought about going to a four year - Johnson or Wales, CIA, that kind of thing. And then I figured the best learning tool is experience, and a trade school seemed like it would give me a really solid foundation [in] the basics. From there, move my way up and things like that. I enrolled in the middle of the pandemic, so that was a little hard to navigate. I think the whole world was struggling to navigate with life itself at that point. But, you know, I'm really glad I took that step. And now I'm working at one of the top restaurants in Washington, D.C. 00:04:34 Watkins: Before I went to culinary school, I worked in three different restaurants. I was actually front of house for three of those different restaurants. But I also interacted with most of the chefs, and they showed me like a little thing or two about cooking. And the more I cooked and I invited people over to eat, they would always ask me, why am I not in the kitchen? And I always ...
