A culinary education at Gateway Technical College
can lead to a challenging in varied
career.
In a single day, students may be cooking, managing others, ordering food,
or working with advanced culinary
technology.
[Instructor] Culinary Arts is a two-year
associate degree program.
We start with the very basic Culinary
One.
Culinary One starts with chopping
vegetables, knife skills. Knife skills are
very very important.
So that's what we start with, and
that's going to carry you through the
whole two year program.
[Narrator] In addition to Culinary One, a student's education will also include classes on
nutrition,
sanitation and hygiene, catering and
banquets,
as well as baking.
[Instructor] Basic baking starts you
out with understanding why yeast rises,
what eggs do, what does baking powder/ baking soda do for you, how to make a pie, how to make a cake.
We just start with the basics, then
we go into convenient baking--that now I
understand how everything works.
Now what can I do if I get a 50-pound
bag of brownie mix in.
What can I do with that brownie mix?
[Narrator] The Culinary facility, which is located on the Racine Campus,
also features modern equipment used in today's restaurant industry
including stoves, smokers, walk-in freezer
and cooler,
and added kitchen instructional space.
[Instructor] The kitchen has just been remodeled.
It has been gutted from beginning to end.
We have a beautiful floor that's put in
that's non-skid.
It's good on your legs. It has a nice
cush for you, so we don't need floor mats.
All our refrigerators and ovens are all
labels and marked.
So the students know if they need to go
to refrigerator one, we can tell them where that is.
If they're working in groups and say stove
number six is their stove
that's where they work for the day.
That's where they get to go.
[Student] I didn't know anything about an
industrial kitchen.
I really didn't know what a commercial
kitchen looked like.
The size of everything is
a little bit overwhelming at first. The
pans are this big.
[Instructor] It's just the way the
outside world should be,
and that's what we want to instill in
them, is that this is the way it should be
when they get out in the real world.
[Student] It is industrial too, a little bit, and that's been
interesting to work with, and I'm not
intimidated by large amounts anymore,
and big equipment, and
I mean, our mixers are this tall.
[Instructor] Today we're doing raised doughnuts.
So they've um activated their yeast in
their water. They've made the raised
doughnuts. They're frying them now,
and then they can decorate them the way
they like. Something different besides
just a plain old cinnamon roll. What can I do to it?
[Student] So I have my grandmother's cake recipe,
and learning how to really make a cake
here, I've
it's better now then it's ever been. I
was making it for years.
[Narrator] There's also a full-service bakery outlet on the Racine Campus
allowing students to experience the
entire retail baking industry.
[Instructor] Once our products are done, the students, of course, get to sample them, make sure
that they taste what they've made.
And then from there, we move them to
our retail bakery,
and that's where we sell all our products. 
We sell fresh homemade bread,
we sell our sweet rolls, we sell
muffins,
we sell sandwiches and salads that the
short order Deli class is making.
So everything is utilized either through
selling it on our front line,
or selling it in the retail bakery.
The retail bakery is open from
8-2, Monday through Thursday.
[Narrator] A degree in the Culinary Arts from Gateway can lead
students down a variety of different
career paths
including Line Cook,  Pastry Baker, Manager,
or other skilled and technical industry
positions.
[Student] In my wildest dreams, I'd love to own a bakery.
umm I've thought very seriously about shelter
kitchens and
working in a non-profit. I have some
experience with that and I've,
I might like to work to move into
the non-profit world.
[Instructor] They can start anywhere from working at a George Webb, moving into
a fine establishment, fine dining. It
depends where the student wants to go.
It depends what they want to retain, what
they wanna take with them.
We start with Culinary One. We end up
our last class is fine dining.
So they get the experience from
beginning to end, and
they can go almost anywhere.
[Student] My first career was very academic, and this is very hands-on and practical, and that makes it
a wonderful switch for me. I've actually
never worked harder in my life, but I
like it. I like in a very, very much.
[Narrator] People interested in the Culinary program at Gateway
are invited to visit the facilities and
can even shadow a student during class.
[Instructor] Yes, just call us anytime. We've had a few students come through
from the high schools
that their parents or grandparents
have come to our fine dining and really enjoyed
their meal and wanted to bring their
grandchild through
and see what we have to offer, and
we'll be happy to have them come in.
We can do shadowing with someone if they
want to come in on a Thursday with
Culinary Two,
and work right in the kitchen to see
what we produce and how we go about
producing it.
That's always welcome. We'll always take
anybody that's interested.
