Photo by: Fernando A. Martinez.
After more than a decade of delays, plans for a dedicated, state-of-the art kitchen and classroom facility for Southwestern College’s Culinary Arts Program are beginning to take shape. Administrators hope the move will be a recipe for success for students looking to cook up a career in San Diego County’s competitive hospitality industry.
Dr. Mink Stavenga, dean of the School of Business and Technology, oversees the Culinary Arts program. He said its expansion comes at an important time of rapid local growth.
“This now gives us an opportunity to have a daytime program and a nighttime program, so we’ll basically be able to double the number of students coming through our program at a time of greater demand with the development of the Chula Vista bayfront,” he said. “It will be one of those few professions where there’s a great demand here in the South County.”
SC’s planned $96.5 million central complex will house the new culinary arts facility, along with an expanded student union, cafeteria and bookstore. Health services, a veteran’s resource center and a home for the Jag Kitchen/Cares closet are also targeted for the space.
Funding for the project is from the $400 million Proposition Z taxpayer bond, passed by voters in 2016. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2021, with a planned completion date of 2023.
Culinary Arts students now share kitchen facilities with the cafeteria and attend other food service classes elsewhere on the campus. There are 479 declared Culinary Arts program majors, but only 65 students enrolled in lab classes, where students get hands-on cooking experience.
“Our classes are impacted,” said Assistant Professor of Culinary Arts Laura Gershuni. “Pretty consistently every semester we have long wait lists, and you can’t just let students into these classes that are lab courses just for safety reasons and for equipment and space reasons we can only allow a certain number of students in each class. Some students need to wait.” Gershuni, a graduate of The Cordon Bleu in Paris, has worked at SC since 2016. She is coordinating with architects and other planners to make sure the new culinary arts facility can match strength with other programs in the area. They have already toured facilities at Mesa College and there is a specialized food consultant working on the project to ensure the SC program will have enough square footage and equipment.
A preliminary architectural plan for the new central space dedicates just over 6,000 square feet for two kitchens, two classrooms, a small office and a mock-dining area.
Plans for an expanded culinary arts facility were first drawn up in 2010 by BCA Architects as part of a Proposition R contract, but SC’s 2011 Governing Board cancelled the contract and several other important campus projects after a widespread corruption scandal. BCA CEO Paul Bunton pleaded guilty in the case, along with eight SC employees or contractors.
Besides a lack of space, previous culinary arts instructors complained the program suffered from underfunding and inadequate equipment.
Gershuni said that is no longer the case. Recently, her small office was stuffed with boxes of new equipment and utensils, purchased through grants she wrote. Funding for other needs comes from the college, if she submits her needs in advance.
“We have mixers, we have food processors, we have new pans, we have scales, we have small wares,” she said, looking around. “I could go on.”
Just before Thanksgiving, Culinary Arts students were invited to join the Jag Kitchen in marking Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week by cooking a meal. On the menu were fresh tomato soup and assorted rolls, as well as round butter cookies filled with dulce de leche called alfajores.
All food was made from scratch, then refrigerated.
Before the meal, folding tables set up in a room off the cafeteria kitchen served as a prep area. Students dressed in white chef’s coats and hats chopped basil for the soup and piped on the sweet and gooey filling for the cookies. Then they packed up the food on a rolling cart and wheeled it across campus to the Jag Kitchen.
Photo by: Fernando A. Martinez.
Before coming to Southwestern College, Russian-born Irina Ortiz worked as a lawyer for 15 years in her home country. She started classes to become a paralegal, but switched gears to follow her heart into culinary arts. Now she said she hopes to study at The Cordon Bleu and become a pastry chef.
“I was always so interested in this,” she said. “I thought, why wouldn’t I try this? Here is more about art, it’s about creating.”
Student Vivian Mercado came from the Philippines and has already worked as a Licensed Practical Nurse. Now she wants to have her own catering business.
“I wanted to try something else, so I am here,” she said. “I like to bake rather than cooking, but we’ll see.”
Over in the Jag Kitchen, the students ladled out the soup and passed out bread and cookies.
Gershuni said events like and lab time are extremely important in preparing students for the workplace.
“There are certain skills that students cannot gain from lecture-based classes alone. They gain knife skills and specific culinary arts techniques that they would never gain in a classroom setting. There are things they need to practice and hone and really become skilled at in order to become competitive in the workplace.”
