Twenty-four
students are hard at work on their classroom projects. They chop
scallions, cut up mushrooms or slice tenderloin for Char Shue—twice-cooked
pork. Others are following recipes for Thai Fried Rice, General
Tsao’s Chicken or Golden Tiger Dumpling Soup.
The class is Chinese Restaurant Overhaul being
taught by Luke Finchem (EHS ’88) in the kitchen-classroom
at the D&W supermarket in Grandville, Mich. It’s one
of almost 70 different offerings from D&W’s Chef’s
School during their winter schedule that runs from January through
April.
There are various island counters at which students
prepare their dishes. Some tend woks at a row of high-end retail
stoves with burnished-steel hoods housing exhaust fans. Others
wander to a nine-tier bookshelf filled with spices and oils, or
select a knife from those lined up on magnetic wall holders.
Finchem moves from counter to counter answering
questions and offering suggestions—sometimes turning on
the microphone he has clipped to his white chef’s smock
to explain some technique to the entire class.
It looks like a special audience-participation
episode of Emeril Live, or maybe the Galloping Gourmet.
“My family and friends are always ribbing
me,” Finchem says. “They ask me if I’ve got
my own show yet. I tell them I’m on the hunt for a producer.”
The
supermarket chain started the Chef’s Kitchen program in
fall of 2002 with the help of Ferris grad Bob Garlough (EHS ’92).
“There’s a growing interest in cooking
in the United States,” he says. “It’s not as
much sustenance anymore as it is entertainment. Around the country
the higher-end and service-oriented stores are starting these
kinds of programs
to meet their customers’ needs.”
Garlough certainly has the right background
to help a program like Chef’s Kitchen be sure it has all
the ingredients for success.
In 1980, he was hired to start the Culinary
Arts program at Grand Rapids Community College. A decade later,
GRCC partnered with Ferris State to open the Applied Technology
Center, which resulted in additional instructional space and kitchens.
With new kitchen and instructional space available
in the evenings, Garlough helped launch the Institute for Culinary
Enthusiasts.
“The idea was that we would offer non-degree
cooking classes for fun and give the public a chance to use some
of the facilities their tax-dollars helped to fund,” Garlough
explains. “GRCC has done that successfully for 13 years
now. With a market for more seminar-styled cooking classes in
West Michigan, D&W decided to open a cooking school, which
they asked me to help set up. So now both cooking schools are
flourishing, which speaks to the need in the community for these
kinds of classes.”
Although Garlough started the Culinary Arts
program at GRCC, which he headed until 2000, he didn’t have
an advanced degree.
“I was very close to getting my bachelor’s degree
in education when the GRCC opportunity became available and I
moved from Florida to Michigan,” he explains. “The
master’s degree in Occupational Education I eventually earned
at Ferris rounds out my associate degree in Culinary Arts and
my bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.”
How
does someone develop a taste for a career in food?
“Food was central to our family, but I
never considered it as a way to make a living,” Garlough
says. “Then during high school, I had a job working in a
restaurant and loved it. I went on to college as an English major,
but I didn’t know what to do with it. I kept coming back
to that job I had in high school, so I looked up culinary schools
and applied. It was the best thing I ever did.”
For Finchem, the culinary life runs in the family.
“My dad was in food service for about
30 years and an older sister for probably 20 years,” says
Finchem. “I went into Food Service Management at Ferris.
I’ve done a great deal of it and I like working with people—but
cooking transcends everything, so I really enjoy teaching the
Chef’s Kitchen classes. Teaching gives me a creative outlet.”
That
creativity extends to Finchem’s interest in “fusion
cuisine”—combining different culinary traditions in
a single recipe.
“In class, I can say this is a great way
to do this marinated Jamaican Jerked Chicken, but we’re
going to make it today with a Vietnamese or Thai-influenced pineapple
slaw,” Finchem explains.
Outside of the classroom, Finchem’s tastes
include dishes not quite so esoteric. “I’m a sucker
for great barbeque. Someday I plan to organize a wonderful southern
or western barbeque tour.”
Traveling in search of great food and new recipes
has been an essential ingredient in GRCC’s Culinary Arts
program for three decades.
“In 1984, the first year we organized
a trip, we went to Germany and France,” says Garlough. “Last
year we went to a culinary school in Paris, and another in Malta.
This year we spent three days in the Piedmont region in Italy,
where we took cooking classes, and visited wineries, olive oil
factories and cheese farms. Professionally, I’ve always
loved Mediterranean cooking, so the trip was great in that sense.
Although now I’m teaching baking, and I love artisan breads.
There’s something very elemental about a good loaf of bread.”
In
2000, Garlough stepped down as department head to concentrate
on teaching. He also is putting his English studies to good use.
He has contracted with Thompson Learning to write three culinary
books. The first of the three, on ice-carving, came out this last
summer.
If publishing is in Garlough’s future,
could that TV show be in Finchem’s? Last Valentine’s
Day, a local television station filmed Finchem as he made holiday
treats at the cooking demonstration station in D&W’s
Cascade store.
With a few deft moves, Finchem fashioned an
appetizer in the shape of a heart out of two blocks of cream cheese
and a jar of ancho chili pepper sauce. Then, to highlight a new
product, Finchem created a pan of gnocci in freshwater lobster-tail
sauce, which he served in sample portions to passing shoppers.
Iron Chef, beware.
