Chef Christopher Wolf, ccc,cce, csw, cpi,
Executive Chef Arizona Culinary Institute
Happy May everyone! Lots of topics to chat about this month…some items I can be loud and vocal about, but some items are still “under-construction” so I can only offer little teasers. I guess that just means you’ll have to keep paying attention!
Always an exciting time: Summer Graduation is upon us! On Friday, June 3rd, we’ll be saying “congratulations” to all of our proud graduates for the first half of 2016. I NEVER get tired of seeing our amazing students walk across that stage…such a proud Papa! Great job everyone!
We have an Open House scheduled for Saturday, June 18th. Chef DeWitt will be teaching a pastry boot camp for high school students, which should be a blast. Chef Wolf (yours truly) will be teaching a class on behalf of the Army’s Wounded Warrior Program where wounded Veterans are invited to the school with 1 guest to learn a little about cooking at home. It’s a really great program, and very rewarding. PS – ACI would love to have some of our own Veteran students volunteer to help with the event, and the Wounded Warriors in attendance would be appreciative too.
On Thursday, June 16th, ACI was invited to participate in a charity dinner up in Cottonwood, AZ, on the opening night of the Tilted Earth Festival: 6 courses, 6 chefs, 6 wineries, for 200 guests. All proceeds go to charity. ACI is proud to be providing the dessert course, several chef instructors, and a crew of student volunteers for the event. The event is organized every year by our good friend Eric Glomski of Page Springs Cellars. Eric is a great friend of the school, and an amazing winemaker here in Arizona.
ACI’s Modernist Cooking Club is still moving forward. Our monthly meetings have generated some really good projects. We’re always looking for more interested students and alumni to join, so don’t be shy. The vibe of the club is really cool: we’re all like mad-culinary-scientists! Playing with food never gets boring, especially when you’re using new and modern techniques. Please contact the school if you need any more details, or check out the ACI Modernist Cooking Club Facebook page.
The herb and vegetable garden behind the school looks better than ever. There has been a lot of hard effort going on back there and it is paying off! It’s really cool to see products grown on campus being used by our students: garden to classroom baby!
We have a very exciting internship possibility brewing. We may or may not be in negotiations with a certain Sin-City resort that is interested in creating an internship program for our students. Nothing is finalized yet, but if it all works out, there could be an awesome opportunity on the horizon…
Lastly, there is a potential “culinary dream scenario” in the works at ACI. I can’t say much, but let me just mention that it involves ACI, our students, alumni, and maybe a partnership with one of the very best restaurants in the world. Repeating that: I didn’t say best in the country, I said one of the best in the WORLD. Have a great month!