1st Time Culinary Team Shines at Regionals

March 11, 2004

CMC has two Culinary Arts Institutes, one in Vail and one at Keystone Resort in Summit County. This is the first time the Vail Institute has ever had a competitive team and they won state right out of the starting block at competition in Denver last fall.

“Being on the team’s about organization,” said second year Culinary Arts student Mike Winston, who prepared the entrée, Pan Roasted Breast of Free-Range Chicken with chicken liver and giblet salpicon a la Cussy, sweet potato tourné, kale, broccoli, and Mederia Sauce. “In competition you have to show up with all your own food and your own equipment. There’s no room for mistakes.

“This is really good discipline. In the last competition I cooked Mushroom a la Grecque. It had mushrooms, artichokes and herbs. I had to learn about everyone’s part. I don’t learn too well from a book, but this is definitely hands on.”

CMC-Vail Director of Culinary Education Todd Rymer said there were two big differences between his students and the other competitors. “We were the only team that acted like it was real food. We put prices on our menu so the judges could evaluate the value of the food based on what the same items would cost at La Tour in Vail. The other competitors thought it was a joke because most of them never had a real cooking job in the real world. All of our students have very real jobs. They work 40 hours a week as apprentices and professional cooks in some of the finest restaurants in Vail.

And, Rymer said, “The judges watching the cooking said we were the only team that looked like we were having fun.

“They were having fun,” said Rymer. They were talking to each other, and enjoying what they were doing, just like they do on their jobs.

CMC’s culinary arts academies are quite different from other CMC programs. Students go year-round for three years and work full-time in the best restaurants at the Keystone Resort and in Vail, in addition to taking classroom courses. Their chefs are their professors.

Mike Winston works at all three dinning room kitchens and at the banquet kitchen at the Sommenalp Resort in Vail. The other members of the team are Mike Simmons, Jon Miller, Kyle Weaver and Mathew Martin.

The team’s coach is Chef Paul the owner and chef at La Tour in Vail.

The menu that won the fourth place award at the Broadmoor was: Piney River Valley Wild Mushroom Consommé $8 Filet of Dover Sole & Maine Lobster Mousse Vapeur $12 Pan Roasted Breast of Free-Range Chicken $24 Black Current Bavarian $6

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