Stuff Boston

The studio lights were so hot, you could fry an egg.

Not that the six student chefs in attendance needed another reason to sweat. Clad in classic white chef coats and hats, they worked furiously, fervently, poring over plates in a small, only modestly equipped prep kitchen - not in a restaurant, not even in their culinary-school classroom, but in, of all unlikely places, a television studio. Around a short bend in the hallway, the gang from TV Diner - the delectable dining series on NECN that has helped rehydrate our salivary glands during many a Saturday-morning hangover - had assembled to capture in living color the dishes produced, run them by a panel of judges, and award one lucky student the chance to have his or her dish served by a professional chef at the TV Diner Platinum Plate Gala on November 21, the show's third annual soiree featuring nearly two dozen Diner-approved local restaurants and food providers. It could be a big break for a burgeoning chef, so the mood was tense. The air was so thick, you could filet it with a knife - the crowd so hushed, you could hear a pin drop on tablecloth. And then, a sudden outcry from a judge ...

"You are soooo the Paula!"

Come on, did you really buy the melodrama? This isn't Hell's Kitchen: it's the first STUFF/TV Diner-sponsored Student-Chef Showdown, and as amazing an opportunity as the competition is (we're not kidding about that), we were all about having some fun with it, too. STUFF editorial director Erica Corsano and creative director Mike Diskin joined chef Nathan Rich from Asana at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel to serve as on-screen judges, and as the chef contestants prepared for the first taste test, the trio was busier assigning American Idol equivalencies than waxing poetic on the culinary arts. (The outcome, for the curious: Mike was deemed a similarly generous but far less medicated version of Ms. Abdul; Erica filled Simon's shoes, albeit in high heels; and Chef Nathan had the balanced, industry-insider perspective of Randy, dog.) Diner host and KISS 108 radio personality Billy Costa presided over the affair with the boundless enthusiasm of eight Ryan Seacrests, and producer/personality Jenny Johnson alternated admirably between the roles of professional ringmaster, wrangling the three-course circus by barking behind-the-scenes directives over her headset, and mother hen-cum-cheerleader, encouraging the crew and watching out for the student chefs.

"Please don't make them cry," she pleaded to the panel of judges.

And how could they, with so much talent filling the room and, more importantly, our city? Boston is renowned for its universities, but besides the brilliant scientists, legal eagles, and powerful politicos churned out of our classrooms, we've also seen a rising number of students training in our culinary schools and going on to keep the local dining scene fresh (call it a sustainable education). Sure, the Showdown itself would only award one winner the opportunity to have his or her winning creation served by Chef Nathan at the Gala, but on a grander scale, this was a chance to celebrate all our future star chefs.

"They have a great understanding of what they want to do and where they want to be," said Johnson after the show, speaking to the dedication of local culinary students. In her work with TV Diner and the Gala - where, for the last three years, student chefs have not only assisted in the kitchen, but formed the primary workforce in every aspect, from setting tables to passing plates - she's had the opportunity to know both established restaurateurs and foodie ingénues. Unlike those of us who ricocheted between early jobs like cracked-out ping-pong balls, feeling our way through the post-college haze and trying to determine what we wanted to do based on what we quickly discovered we didn't (sorry, did I get a little personal there?), Johnson thinks culinary students show a rare kind of single-minded dedication to their craft. "They are fine-tuned to what their passions are and what they want to do for the rest of their lives," she adds. "It's a beautiful thing to watch some of them meet a chef and see the look of admiration, appreciation, and awe."

All three reactions were obvious as the Showdown competitors awaited judgments one at a time: some stood cool and collected, others visibly nervous. The latter wrung their hands as Mike carefully rolled a bite between his lips and Erica wrinkled her nose while examining the presentation of each plate. Perhaps most raptly, they watched Chef Nathan weigh every dish, each an Asian-inspired recipe that kept Asana's Eastern influence in mind, based on how well it would reflect his restaurant and whether it made logistical sense for the large Gala setting. He later shared with STUFF one of his favorite (and appropriate) pieces of advice for future cooks: "I remember working with a chef in Florida who taught me not to be intimidated by what other people can do." Wise words from this linchpin judge of student chefs who, rather ironically, forged his own experience outside the conventional classroom. He remembers cooking "as soon as I could reach the stove!" he says, making breakfast and dinner for his family while growing up in New Hampshire. At age 19, he began his formal training at an apprenticeship program in the state's Balsams Grand Resort Hotel. "Schooling is great, but a lot of people should get experience first," he advises. "A lot of times people pay a lot of money, get into the field, and realize it's not what they thought or harder than it seems."

Fair enough. But talk to the local culinary schools, and more importantly their pupils, and it seems that most of these students have enrolled precisely because they've already sloughed off unfulfilling professions and are ready to finally follow their passions. Career changers constitute, no pun intended, the bread and butter of culinary schools.

"That has become our niche," agrees Julie Burba, marketing and communications director of the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts (CSCA), one of two schools represented in the Student-Chef Showdown. CSCA, founded in 1974, offers four major programs of study: a Professional Chef's Program and Professional Pastry Program, each an intensive 37 weeks long, and a Culinary Certificate Program and Certificate Pastry Program, each a more foundational 16-week study. About 200 students are presently enrolled, and Burba says the great majority of them have done so in pursuit of a second (or third? or fourth?) career that will satisfy a rumbling appetite for change.

The current economic downturn has also played a role, says Stephen King, president of Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Boston, the other school represented in the Showdown. The internationally renowned institution only opened its local location (which is actually in Cambridge) in April of 2008, but King can already tell that most of his students are either looking to expand their skill sets via vocational training "for fear of being laid off" or planning to switch career paths because they are "frustrated in their present situation." Burba agrees, saying CSCA enrollments have increased during the recession as corporate layoffs provide an unusual silver lining: the freedom to finally pursue dream jobs, goals that had been sacrificed for the security of a conventional nine-to-five. "It's a life-path change, and I know after 9/11 we saw a similar surge in enrollment," says Burba. "It was that notion of ‘Life is short, so why am I not doing what truly makes me happy?' "

Funny enough, Burba is a perfect example of someone who synthesized a more traditional career with the culinary arts: not only is she the school's director of marketing and communications, but she's also a CSCA graduate turned classroom instructor, still getting out from behind the desk to stand in front of the stove. Not that the business world and the dining industry are mutually exclusive, of course: in fact, Le Cordon Bleu offers a Hospitality & Restaurant Management Program in addition to its cooking classes, while CSCA recently began offering a basic finance class so that future chefs and caterers can learn to balance the books, work smartly with suppliers, and understand the minutiae of labor costs and other overhead.

That's perfect for aspiring restaurateurs like Tony Sosa, a CSCA student and the first student-chef to stand before the TV Diner panel. Though he didn't win with his dish, an Eastern-style pork loin served with potato globes and sesame green beans, he believes culinary school is the obvious next step after spending two decades of his life working in "front of the house" positions (mainly as a general manager) with local spots like Wolfgang Puck Catering and St. Botolph Restaurant. Though years of observation taught him much about life in the kitchen, he felt as though he was "still always the guy walking back there in the suit and tie," says Sosa. "I'd watch the cook on the line and go, ‘Who the heck is that guy, and what's he doing in here?' I secretly envied them and their knowledge." Sosa, who studied math in college before almost immediately realizing he preferred the "electricity" of the dining world, hopes that besides balancing the left and right hemispheres of his brain, the creative indulgence of culinary school will balance his understanding of the front and back of the restaurant house to make him a more marketable manager should restaurateur-ship prove too risky.

At 43, the career-changing Sosa was one of the older contestants in the Showdown. On the other end of the spectrum was Grace Anna Brinton. It wasn't long ago that the 24-year-old graduated with her bachelor's degree in psychology, but she couldn't deny the love of food that was in her blood: she was raised on a farm in Maine where her father, an environmental scientist, helped run an early CSA program. Family dinners were made using fresh ingredients from their own or other local farms. After relocating to Boston and graduating with her degree, she chose to work as an after-school counselor at Ellis Memorial & Eldredge House, a South End non-profit, where she taught cooking classes to underserved kids; she also volunteers with Kids Cooking Green, a classroom-based program teaching healthy eating to middle schoolers. Now in the culinary classroom herself, she hopes her education will help her continue to find ways to integrate the practical and therapeutic benefits of cooking into work with children. "I think it's a great tool to help them learn without them really realizing it," she says. "It requires reading, thinking about measurements, and lets them feel proud and confident. A lot of kids in the after-school program had learning disabilities or behavior problems, and when they're doing this [cooking], they're not struggling. It's great to see them enjoy themselves."

The experiences of Sosa and Brinton underscore the varied reasons future chefs pursue a culinary education, but there are plenty of opportunities for those among us who simply have a fancy for food (yes, that means you, dear reader!), if not the desire for a total career swap, to indulge our epicurean interests. CSCA sees a whopping 8000 students annually roll through its Recreational Programs, one-time or short-term classes focusing on various specialties. The Boston Center for Adult Education is always a popular choice for cooking, baking, and wine courses, and the demonstration kitchen at Barbara Lynch's Stir is a favorite destination for small groups. But other restaurants offer opportunities for amateur chefs to step inside their professional kitchens as well: The Elephant Walk offers classes almost weekly between its Boston and Cambridge locations, and if you can rustle up a group of 15 to 25 foodie friends, Taranta offers a "Cooking Challenge," where teams scour the North End on a scavenger hunt for ingredients before returning to the kitchen to whip up their dinner.

But if you have more than a merely passing passion for food, you'll need real dedication to the craft of cooking to succeed in culinary school. That's what helped Victoria Shotton rise to the top as the crème de la crème of the Student-Chef Showdown. She wowed the judges with a gorgeously plated, mouth-watering Asian calamari salad, but it required her to slave over a stove with uncommon devotion. "I only found out about the competition on Friday," says Shotton, a Cordon Bleu student. With less than a week before the competition, she blew off a weekend trip to get cracking on her recipe and worked at it "24/7" until the moment she stepped into the TV studio. A 25-year vet of the hospitality industry, she's finally attaining her professional degree in the culinary arts - and, occasional weekend sacrifices aside, she couldn't be happier.

"It's been a whirlwind," she says of preparing for the competition. "But this is what I love to do. It's what I've always wanted."

And leaning what you love is the most valuable lesson of all. If that education happens to be edible, it's just the frosting on the cake.