When Tabitha Hardel brought a triple chocolate cake infused with coffee to a church function some years back, people loved it.
“You should open your own bakery,” they gushed.
A lot of home cooks—especially ones like Hardel who have cooked all their lives—hear that often. It doesn’t mean you can throw everything into a full-time business.
But it stuck with Hardel, 43, of Knox, IN, and led her to enroll in Ancilla College’s fledgling Culinary Arts program at the school’s Donaldson, IN, campus.
She says that in two years she has noticed a big difference in her skills and knowledge. She’s slated to graduate from the program this year and plans to start a mobile bakery in a converted school bus.
Ancilla’s program started in the fall of 2017, but culinary programs are not new to Michiana. Ivy Tech Community College in South Bend, IN, is by far the most established in the area, with graduates working all over the world. Lake Michigan College in Benton Harbor, MI, has a Hospitality and Culinary Management program. In addition, LMC has taken advantage of its unique location in Lake Michigan wine country with a Wine and Viticulture program that recently moved into a new facility serving not just as a classroom but also as a commercial winery.
Demand for skilled people was behind Ancilla’s decision to establish its Culinary Arts program.
“There seemed to be a need for a lot of food industry people,” says chef Donna Wenzel, director of Ancilla’s program, where students can earn an Associate of Applied Science degree.
“Our goal is to make sure they know the basics the right way,” Wenzel says, “and they take what they learned and go into their own places of business.”
Ancilla offers classes in baking, international cooking, nutrition, buffet, sanitation and purchasing, among others. That last is designed for people who want to learn how to design and manage a restaurant.
The program is right up Matthew Markovitz’s alley.
Markovitz, 21, from Knox, is set to graduate from Ancilla this spring. He has plans to open his own restaurant. He is also deaf.
Markovitz has been cooking since he was five, learning alongside his father. He also has an uncle who is a retired professional chef in Italy. His goal is to have an upscale Italian restaurant in Chicago. For now, he wants to start small, with a food truck.
He says he “wants to show the world a deaf person can do this.”
“Deaf people can do anything,” Markovitz says, “with communication on paper, or a smartphone. ... Hands-on learning works in any language.”
Ivy Tech, in addition to being the largest community college in the state, is also the largest culinary school in Indiana, according to chef Brent Spring, who has been program chair of Ivy Tech’s Hospitality Administration program for 11 years. If you eat out in Michiana, your dining experience has most likely been influenced by one or more Ivy Tech graduates.
In addition to certificates and associate degrees in various hospitality fields, including Culinary Arts and Baking and Pastry arts, Ivy Tech graduates can come out of their program eligible for entry- level certification with the American Culinary Federation (ACF), the main professional chef organization in North America. This puts them a step ahead on the road to becoming certified as a master chef, Spring says.
Spring is a firm believer in immersive programs for Ivy Tech students. He and his staff have organized trips all over the world and do their best to keep them affordable. One trip took 16 students on a tour of France, to see where many of the fundamental lessons and techniques of great cooking were first perfected and codified.
Those experiences, not to mention the experienced and skilled faculty, are what make Ivy Tech’s program great, according to Joshua Bishop, executive chef and co-owner of The Carriage House Dining Room and Gardens in South Bend, and a 2015 graduate of the school.
“It wasn’t only going on a trip,” Bishop, 36, says, “it was immersive.” He adds that the groups he traveled with didn’t just visit places, but they also worked with culinary professionals and students and participated in workshops.
Bishop believes that the well-roundedness of the program—from cooking to planning to the management end of the food business—has been truly valuable.
“All of those things are helping me run one of the best fine dining restaurants in South Bend,” he says, adding that he still seeks advice from his old mentors Spring and chef Patsy Wyman at Ivy Tech.
Well-roundedness is also a key part of the program at Lake Michigan College. Headed by chef Luis Amado, founder of the Culinary Institute of Michigan and its department chair for baking and pastry arts for more than 20 years, LMC puts an emphasis on managerial skills. One goal, Amado says, is to get students ready to run their own business and food service programs, not just restaurants.
There is also a community service component to LMC’s program, with non-credit classes that members of the community can take to improve their skills.
“We want to be known for community-oriented classes as well as workforce training,” he says.
LMC is planning to add another piece to its culinary program in the fall of 2020: chocolate and confections. That’s Amado’s specialty, one he travels the world teaching.
Chocolate should pair well with another signature part of LMC’s programs: Wine and Viticulture.
The program literally ranges from farm to table, with a two-year Associate in Applied Science, which encompasses instruction in site selection; vineyard, canopy and harvest management; fermentation; quality control; bottling; and every other part of the wine process.
“Our students get really good experience from the ground to the bottle,” says Michael Moyer, LMC’s director of Wine and Viticulture.
“We do emphasize the fact that our program is really hands on. They’re getting their hands dirty in the field, in the cellar,” he says.
The program features an intensive summer session at the height of the growing season.
All of this is headquartered in the Welch Center, a $7 million, 14,000-square-foot “teaching winery,” which houses every stage of the winemaking process from pressing and fermentation to bottling and tasting. While LMC purchases most of its grapes from local vineyards, students also learn the farming end.
“We have a great partnership with Michigan State University and the Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center, where we manage existing vineyard blocks and use the fruit for winemaking,” Moyer says.
Students learn about the consumer end of the business in the tasting room, which is open to the public on Fridays and Saturdays, or by appointment.
One of the rewards for Moyer, who taught winemaking in Washington before coming to LMC, has been seeing where LMC’s graduates end up. Many find jobs at the wineries throughout Southwest Michigan, and others are working for respected wineries farther afield.
“If you’re interested in a career in the wine industry, this is a great place to start,” Moyer says.
Ivy Tech Hospital Administration
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