Photo By Cindy Gonzalez / Staff
By Ashley Bueno Leon
For more than 30 years Southwestern College has promised the community a top-flight culinary arts facility.
The long-simmering project may be ready for serving in 2025, according to Chef Kris Saradpon, an assistant professor of culinary arts.
“I’m super excited,” she said. “We are going to have a brand-new kitchen facility in the spring of 2025. It’s always been a small program because we’ve never had our own space. Students will soon get a taste of real-world experience.”
Culinary arts faculty expects its own kitchen facility in time for the upcoming semester. It has been sharing facilities with Food Services staff. The new facility will have more advanced tools and more space.
Culinary arts professor Laura Gershuni said she is counting down the days to the new facility. She predicts great things for a program in a borderlands region with astonishing culinary diversity.
“It’s exciting to see the way food provides nourishment and comfort,” she said. “Food is linked so closely to cultural identities and communities. We have some of the best cuisine in the world in Chula Vista. It really is exceptional to live so close to another country and have access to so much talent and so many wonderful flavors.”
Saradpon said cooking and eating are multisensorial.
“Culinary arts invokes all five senses,” she said. “Bacon, for example. You put it on a frying pan and you hear the sizzle. You smell the beautiful scent. The texture when you bite into it is crispy, crunchy, salty. It’s the art you get to eat. Not a lot of artists can say that.”
Culinary arts student Veronica Worrells agreed.
“As a creator you’re sharing yourself,” she said. “I think in art you share your feelings or ideas. Cooking is the same thing.”
Cooking can go straight to the heart, she said.
“That’s why comfort food exists,” she said. “It makes you feel good. I create apple pie often because it’s one of my favorites. It is something I enjoy making.”
Saradpon said food preparation is an ongoing art.
“Everyone has to eat,” she said. “People enjoy eating. Eating is a very social activity. At every celebration — even funerals — food is involved. Each culture has its own food traditions and how it’s shared and celebrated. It’s just so exciting.”
