NELSONVILLE — The smells of all different kinds of food and the heat from the ovens appear when the heavy metal door is opened. There are multiple students at the counters, grabbing all different kinds of food off the sliding metal shelves and taking it to their group to start working.
Students can enroll in Culinary Art at Tri-County Career Center and High School in Nelsonville and get a jump start on the $500 billion food industry and into a cooking career.
Chef Katie Mosher finished her culinary journey at Hocking College in 2010. She became a chef six months later and became a certified executive chef in 2015. Mosher has been working at Tri-County since 2017.
Chef Katie is passionate about the program and how much students enjoy the class. She likes working with the students and helping them discover their cooking careers. Chef Katie thinks that Tri-County is great and that it offers several different certifications that students will need for the working world.
“Cooking is a hobby of mine and I like cooking so that’s what I enjoy,” said Nevaen Lawson, a senior in the class.
Culinary Arts uses science and techniques and it involves a lot of moving around cleaning and learning new skills.
“I think students enjoy it a lot … at the beginning of the year we have a couple of new students who come in and realize that it’s a little bit harder work than what they were expecting,” said Mosher.
“We are basically just busy all the time. It’s hard but it’s well worth it and fun,” said Lanne Dailey, a senior in the Culinary Arts program.
This class also provides multiple certifications, like the 10-hour OSHA card which gives students an introduction to work safety and teaches them to not walk under ladders and other workplace safety skills.
During junior year, students learn everything in sections. The main lesson that students enjoy is when they get to cook during their breakfast section which is when they cook an entire meal instead of just sections of different things. Overall junior year is learning how to cook and learn certain skills like knife skills and other cooking techniques.
During senior year, students run a coffee cart on Tuesdays and a restaurant for the faculty and staff on Thursdays. Seniors also learn more about planning and operating a restaurant. During each semester, the restaurant will have different menus and during the last semester, the students will be able to make their menus for the restaurant which lets students experiment with different ideas.
Some other certifications that students will be able to enroll in are the ServSafe manager certification, which deals with the sanitation of food and making sure it doesn’t become contaminated and deals with personal hygiene and wellness.
Another certification is the ServSafe food handler certification which is done in junior year. It teaches students how to be safe with food in general. It isn’t as in-depth as the ServeSafe manager certification and it lasts five years.
Another certification is the telephone doctor certification. It mainly deals with people who are upset, how to calm down a customer or how to stop an issue from escalating.
The students that join Culinary Arts get to do a lot during the two-year program like learn basic cooking skills and food handling and go on field trips. For example, in senior year they will go to Jungle Jim’s in Cincinnati which is a grocery store that has every international kind of food and they will be able to get some products at the store that they can use in class.
Culinary Arts also can offer multiple career paths and opportunities. Some of the opportunities students can get are restaurant cook, Maitre d’host or hostess, caterer, dietary assistant, and server. There are some more advanced opportunities students can get are restaurant management, food stylist, restaurant chef, pastry chef, and an FCS teacher.
The average yearly salary for a chef or head cook in Ohio is $50,640. While the average yearly salary for a restaurant cook is $30,440. There are many more additional opportunities that students can get by advancing their education in culinary like an FCS teacher which is a family consumer science teacher has a yearly salary is around $79,230. Students can get many more advanced jobs to expand their education and experience after Tri-County.
Graduates from the program can go on to college and have multiple opportunities after they may be able to enter entry-level cook positions in which students can expand their education with culinary school and other colleges like Hocking College.
With the Culinary Arts class in Tri-County, students can compete in cooking competitions throughout the state. If students get high enough ranked they can compete in national competitions where there is one student per state that can go and compete.
Students who take Culinary Arts can be ready for the workforce and learn different skills.
“They’re prepared for the workforce when they leave my program and that’s regardless if they choose to go in a restaurant or food service setting. They are learning discipline, resilience, they’re learning customer service skills, they’re learning how to be a team, and how to use their skills,” said Mosher.
Skyler King is a student journalist with Tri-County Career Center and High School’s New Media+ program.
