In the kitchen, students cook up career readiness

For some students, the aroma of roasted vegetables and a grilled protein signals more than dinner. It marks career development in a commercial kitchen lab where they learn kitchen operations and teamwork.

Each semester, students in the Howard Feiertag Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, part of the Pamplin College of Business, take the Culinary Operations Management/Chef Lab course taught by instructor Dave Yanisko while they learn recipes ranging from soups and salads to protein entrees and desserts.

“Our students are preparing for careers in hospitality, and in almost every area they’ll enter, they’ll encounter food and beverage,” said Yanisko. “The goal of the course is to get our students acquainted with culinary operations while learning to problem-solve and communicate, which may be the most important thing we are doing in this lab."

While cooking a new meal each week, students work through real world scenarios encountered in food and beverage service. Ranging from timing a meal service to adjusting plans if guests do not show up, students are learning more than just cooking. Additional tasks such as analyzing ingredient prices and calculating the cost per plate mimic what restaurant managers and catering professionals do every day. They also earn ServSafe certification from the National Restaurant Association.

Twice throughout the semester, students take part in a practicum where they must budget a menu, cook a full meal, and plate and serve the meal to their invited guests without the direct involvement of Yanisko. Each team is responsible for creating and delivering a detailed purchase order for the practicum. Students are evaluated on table presentation, purchase order accuracy, meal quality, and overall event organization.

“It really surprised me how much more goes into culinary operations than just cooking,” said Karine Okaily, a junior in the department. “There is a lot of team coordination and planning that goes into it — we saw that especially in the practicums. Knowing how to budget and cost everything and then come up with a purchase order and make sure that you're really optimizing all your resources is one thing that I will definitely carry with me.”

In the first practicum, students served Caesar salad, croque monsieur, glazed root vegetables, coleslaw, and a rum chocolate mousse. They worked with a budget of $7.50 per guest, amounting to $90 total for 12 guests. For the second practicum, they served Caesar salad, pan-roasted pork medallions, champ potatoes, stuffed zucchini, and an apple cockaigne for dessert. 

“Before the semester, I probably would have said that I hate cooking,” said Evelyn Kratovil, a junior in the class. “However, I've really found that I just enjoyed the seriousness of being able to focus on one task at a time. The skill to prioritize what needs to come first and doing it as a cohesive unit is something that has really stuck with me and will help me in my career.”

After each day in the kitchen, students gather to share the meal they just prepared and reflect on their work. 

“To see them execute recipes from start to finish is very satisfying as an instructor,” Yanisko said. “In the lab, they get their hands dirty preparing food while learning purchasing management, menu development, and how to cost recipes and menus.”