Students on course to serve good grub

Erica Shen

In a cozy kitchen tucked behind the student center cafeteria at

Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, students gather for career

training slightly different from the usual college fare.

This is a classroom saturated with the smell of fried onions and

baked ham, where course lectures are punctuated with knives chopping

and pots clanging.

Dressed in checkered pants, white jackets and high chef’s hats,

the students of OCC’s culinary arts program took out their tools

during a class session and began to experiment with the day’s menu.

Their instructor, Chef Bill Barber, walked from station to station,

adjusting plate arrangements and checking food temperatures.

“In the menu, the salad and the sour cream are separated,” Barber

said to one of his students, insisting that she remix her mixed

cucumber salad and “serve the sour cream on the side.”

As head chef and an associate professor of culinary arts, Barber

started teaching at OCC in the spring of 1990. Before his transition

into teaching, he worked at Bubbles Balboa Club, a Newport Beach

restaurant no longer in business.

“I just thought that it would be an interesting way to go,” he

said. “To be able to work with students and to help them is

interesting.”

With such courses as basic to advanced baking, menu planning, and

food production management, OCC offers students an associate of arts

degree in culinary arts, as well as supplemental educational

requirements for the cook apprenticeship program to become a

certified cook.

The majority of Barber’s students hope to one day own and operate

their own restaurants. Some even harbor dreams of hosting their own

show on television’s Food Network.

“Some people may not recognize that it is actually a pretty

intense job. You always have to be thinking ahead and preparing ahead

of time, managing your time and ingredients,” said second-year

student Jakob Meireis, 22, who intends to continue his current job at

a hotel to further pursue opportunities in the culinary world.

For some students -- such as 28-year-old Tom Sanborn, who used to

work as an investment analyst -- the culinary arts program serves as

a path to a career change.

“Compared to my old job that consisted of mainly number crunching,

this is much more creative, and it makes you become more appreciative

of creativity and art,” he said.

Sanborn also is a member of OCC’s culinary arts team, which had

just grabbed the Western Region Student Hot Food Competition

championship in Sacramento on Feb. 20.

For 13 years, the American Culinary Assn. has been hosting

competitions at the state, regional and national levels. 2005 was the

fourth year that OCC has won the regional competition.

In the competition, students have one hour and fifteen minutes to

butcher and bone a chicken and a fish. They then must prepare a

preplanned four-course meal for the panel of judges within 90

minutes.

This year the OCC team served the judges a palate-pleasing menu of

sauteed golden trout, beet trio sampler, nut-crusted chicken breast

and an array of desserts.

In order to prepare his students for competition -- as well as

real restaurant situations -- Barber tires to model the classroom

atmosphere after the environment of professional kitchens.

“The image of chefs has been elevated since chefs started

appearing in commercials and advertisements,” Barber said. “You don’t

get this from TV shows, but most restaurant and food service

establishments are really busy. When everybody else that’s not a chef

is either off of work or want to go out to dinner, chefs will still

have to work. Although this sounds like common sense, some people do

not realize that.”