Welcome to another week of Chargers Chat. This week we're in the culinary kitchen
at Southwest Tech joined by Jeff Dombeck and Karen Bast with our culinary
programs here at Southwest Tech. July is
National Culinary Arts Month. Tell us
about the month and how you celebrate.
Well, it is one of our favorite months obviously
July 4th falls in there but you know, Jeff and I are foodies, we we go to bed
thinking about food, we wake up thinking about food. It's true.
When we get done eating lunch we think
about what we're gonna have for dinner.
So, it is in July of course, with Fourth of July there's tons of recipes out there and it's one
of our favorite times to do lots of
grilling and specialty outdoor on the porch
drinks or with family and friends.
So, here at Southwest Tech we have a Culinary Arts program and Culinary Management
Can you talk about those programs, and I guess, how they're different
And, kind of, how they overlap?
Okay, well the Culinary Arts program is one
that I am mainly involved in. It has to
do a lot with specialty food preparation.
Things you wouldn't do when you're
cooking at home because you're actually
cooking for a career so the the way you
do things is different, but it's
fascinating and that's why I love it.
Culinary Arts is is one of those things
that there's so much to learn and
there's always more to learn all the time
and it's involved with not only
food preparation but baking. You learn
about wine service and things like that,
so it really is a very interesting part
of it and but it's, Culinary Arts is mainly
food preparation and Karen does
Culinary Management and that's less
food preparation. You want to talk a little bit more about that.
Sure, the other thing I want to talk about in regards to Culinary Arts too is we serve the general
to public for a few of our classes where
people from the outside of the
organization or within the organization
could come in and dine with us and one
of the most difficult things for the
student is learning
not only not putting everything together
but it's all about learning the timing
to put everything together. It's learning
the timing of cooking and assembling and
plating and garnishing and having all
the plates go out all at once so
everything's hot and fresh and the
customer is happy with the product. And coordinating that service
between the people that prepare the food
and the people who serve the food. It's a it's a dance. An
exciting dance but it's a dance. You know
we took. Jeff and I took a tour to a
restaurant and they did a lot of
in-house training and they were talking
about working the flat top grill and one
of the things they said was and I
owned a restaurant for a number of years
and just sort of thrown into working
the grill and the gentleman at the
restaurant says you don't perfect the
flat top grill in anything less than
five years and I just sort of thought, wow it's a
girl how hard can it be, but it it
absolutely is. That timing is essential. I
was going to say every major piece of
equipment is nuanced and and there's
points about it that you don't know
unless you use it extensively so that's
kind of what we was talking about.
Can you talk about kind of the hands-on training that's available to our students.
You have a full size professional kitchen here. Can you talk about that a little bit?
We do. Our kitchen. It's a
fabulous kitchen. It's mostly stainless
steel so it's really easy to clean. Very
easy to get dirty in a hurry with all
the commotion that's going on back here,
the excitement that's going on back here.
We have lots of equipment that most
people don't have in their home. We have
a broaster. We have steamers and we
have a charbroiler and we have a smoker
and we have lots of equipment that the
students will be able to learn, obviously
other than your stove and flat top and
those types of things. So, the students
really get a good feel for what a
restaurant kitchen is about. They're sort
of spoiled when they're here because the
kitchen is rather big and it's always
organized and clean. The first couple year, the
first year that they're here I'm sort of a 
taskmaster on where things go and
they really don't understand that until
probably their second year where when
they need things in a hurry they always
know it's going to be in a particular
spot. They don't have to search the whole
kitchen to try to figure out what it
is. And it just makes things move along
much faster that way, which is what we're
looking for always. People look at the
industry and they see how it works and
they know it goes very very fast, always
very fast. It goes fast because it's
organized, otherwise we wouldn't do that.
As I said earlier, I owned a restaurant for 
nine, ten years and I woke up every
morning by about quarter to five, was there
by 5:15. I hardly, hardly looked at the
clock until it was time when all my last
customers were leaving and that was
about 5:30, so my day was a 12-hour day
but it went by in a minute. It felt more
like two hours. And in that day Karen
went through all the different points of
what we do here at Southwest Tech.
She did food preparation,
she did service, she cleaned, she directed
employees, cleaned the operation, ordered food,
Yep. Made plans for upcoming events.Marketing. So, all
kinds of things and because Karen and I
have done those types of things before
we are able to share that with the
students and give them real-life
experiences, how those things get done so
that when they leave here they're ready
to go. And Jeff and I come come with very
different backgrounds, so you put both of
our backgrounds together and it's pretty
phenomenal the amount of
information that we can share with the students. I don't
think there's hardly a chapter, a an
event a term that doesn't have a story
related to it and and usually it starts
with "at my restaurant" or with "our catering
business" because Jeff and I owned a catering business
together that we don't have a
story and the students always thank us
at the end of their
time with us how thankful they are about
us being able to relate real-life
experiences to the things that they're
learning in a book. We just don't stand
there and lecture or tell them to read.
We've always got something that goes
with it it that makes it sort of real. And
because of that because of what the
students get knowledge wise experience
wise they can use whatever they learn
here and take it wherever they want.
Just this week we talked to the pastry
chef that works at country club in
Madison. We talked to a young man who is
in charge of a kitchen and partially the
nutrition area of a hospital. We've
talked to someone who runs a coffee shop.
These are all graduates, owners. Who else have we talked to this week? Obviously, business owners. We have
a sales rep from Sysco.
Event coordinators we talked to this week.
And that is in De Pere, 
Wisconsin and Madison, Wisconsin. Oh
Bob's in Dodgeville. The Grumpy Troll. You know one
of the things that Jeff and I are really
proud of is that when we came on board there
weren't a lot of people who worked in
the area that had came from our program.
Now, I don't think you can hardly throw a
rock that we don't hit someone at a
business that's come from Southwest Tech's
program. So, we're really proud that we
put out some really good graduates and
that the graduates don't allow
themselves be held back. They look
forward in any dream that they have we
let them know that it's attainable and
that they just have to chase that dream.
And the money that they make now is
unbelievable. When, when I was a young man
in this business the money that was
available was not the same as it is now.
The types of salaries and bonus
structures and just extra benefits,
health care they get in this industry
now is phenomenal and it's on a par with
any other career path you would take,
except it's a little more fun because
we're involved with food, we're involved
with entertainment, the students enjoy
going to work because it's always a
party atmosphere. So, you know it's really
a great place to work.
One of the things that I said about working
in our industry is that it's almost
like being out, but you get to eat
and you get paid for doing it. So, it's the
best of both worlds.
I have always, I've always loved our
industry,
it's just that years ago our industry
didn't have a lot of respect, so I didn't
always like our industry. I, as,
a career path, but now I look
at this industry and I wish I could go
back 50 years and start my whole life over
again because I'm not sure where I'd be,
but I know I'd be on a cruise ship. I'd be in
the military working in their food
service department, but I'd be somewhere
doing something. I'd be in a big hotel doing catering.
So, for students who may be looking at culinary who are seeing this video
what types of students make good culinary arts or culinary management students?
What types of students are you looking for? Is it all across the board?
You know it's
funny that you asked that question
because if you bring, if you take a restaurant with
let's say 50 employees, they're all
across the board. They, Jeff and I always
say that we're, what is it, dysfunctionally functional. Yeah but
you put us all together and we're pretty
good. You know, typically people in our
industry are creative. A lot of times
they're a little whimsical. Some would
say weird. And that's okay. Yeah. And then
you have people from different ends of
the spectrum. Typically you find people
that are in the kitchen, creative people
in the front of the house, creative. People
in the back of the house tend to like to
be more maybe work a little bit more
independently, if they're a baker or a cook,
but an executive chef on the other
hand is in charge of the whole kitchen
so he has to be very social or she has
to be very social. So, you know I couldn't
put my finger on ten characteristics
because it's all across the board and
you know what we always say my my
daughter always said, you have two
families, you have your work family or
your family that you were born into and
then you have your work family and
that's exactly, anybody who works in our
industry will understand that is that
when
you come to work there is a family that
surrounds you in your employment and so that's one of the
reasons why they're I think I've always
loved the industry is because when I go
to work I always know that there's
people there to support me and respect
me even though I'm not like them in fact
I'm usually very different from any of them, but I've
always been respected and I respect them
in turn.
So, if there's somebody out there that
feels like they're a little different
come on in. We love people that are
different. Um, the next thing about our
programs is that the first year the
students follow this track together and
we, we intentionally set this track up
to be a track, a path that they
walked on together. One, the back
of the house, typically referred to as the
kitchen, has an idea, excuse me, of what's
done back there and then, the front of
the house students have an idea of
what's done back here and vice versa.
So, the first year they learn a little
bit about the back of the house and a
little bit about the front of the house.
And the other thing that we have them
walk that path, even if they're
going down just strictly management is
that what happens if I a cook calls in sick
or what happens if they get in an
accident or they have to fire somebody.
They may have to step in and cook that
night so they do need to know a little
bit about food preparation. And even if
they don't have to cook they do have to
know about how things look and what it
looks like when it's right and when it's
not right so in that case if it's not
right they have to be able to point
those things out and you can't really do
that if you don't have any experience in
the back, so that's why you do that and it's
very valuable. I can't tell you the
number of times that students have come
back and said how they surprised their
kitchen staff by coming back and
actually preparing food. It was a
shocker to the kitchen, the kitchen staff.
Um, Culinary Management focuses obviously
a lot of times referred to more so
the front of the house, however Culinary Management sort of
encompasses everything.
A lot of times when I try to do that first year or the
second year with Culinary Management
students I try to set the foundation for
them to be able to go out and operate or
supervise or manage a restaurant. So, I
give, I try to give them, we try to give
them, skills in costing. We try to give
them skills in hospitality loss so they
know know how to hire people, how to
fire people, how to evaluate them. We give
them skills in sanitation. One of the
most important things in our industry is
how to keep a clean kitchen and safe
kitchen. We give them skills in
supervision. You know, the first thing I
always talk about is how to keep the
kitchen safe, second is how to be able to
have cash flow, how to make money and then
the third thing that I think is most
important that we focus on a lot in
management is how to supervise your
staff, how to motivate them, how to train
them. There's a lot that goes into that
that most people just sort of they throw
them an apron. They call it the magic apron
that hey, I throw you this and you're
going to put it on you're gonna know
everything. However, that's not the way it
works. And that supervision part, that
ability to lead people is the same
whether you're a general manager in a
hotel, restaurant, country club, resort or
you're an executive chef in the kitchen,
same leadership skills, same ability to
motivate people in two different areas,
that's why both sides really need that
manager. The other thing too that I have
found is that the students really have
to focus a lot about detail because when
push comes to shove who's
in charge or who's held accountable for
the operation and that's the manager, so
a lot of times we talk about that
sometimes it's not, it's a little
difficult when you cross that line from
being the hourly worker into management,
however once they get there they find
out how rewarding it is and they find
out how exciting it is but it's a little
scary for them and that's where that
confidence building comes in that we've
talked about so it's pretty exciting and
you know I I just had to we just had a
student that came in this week to
give us the menu from the restaurant
that she just graduated in May and she
wanted to give us the rust or the menu
really she really wanted to come in and
say hey I made it look what I'm doing
and you know sort of like the cat give him
a little pat on the back, but she did it and that's
what all our students were able to do
once they leave from here. And you know
there's some people that say that they
well they're not really into the service
part or they're not really into the
kitchen part, I want to kind of be in
hospitality or I want to jump into
tourism in some way and the nice part is
we've just changed our programs so that
we have more of a hospitality and
tourism slant to them and emphasis so
that also is in there
so if you're looking to be in resorts or
golf and bed and breakfast, yeah travel that kind of thing, entertainment. If you want to be an
event coordinator in one of these places
that is certainly available to you. We cover that in our programs.
And, I guess, finally, what is your favorite part about teaching at Southwest Tech, in the culinary program?
Why do you like it so much?
Well, there's a number of things that I
like about it.
One, I like it because I get to
influence someone's life into a career
that, that will take them to places that they've never dreamt of going.
So, that's one thing that I like. The other
thing I like about teaching is I love
imparting the knowledge that I have and,
and watching the students sort of 
absorb it. I always say that there's a
time in their two years here with me
where I see a light bulb go off. That
light bulb is usually their last semester
here. I see it turn off and on and I see
it flicker in those two years. The 
thing that really makes me so excited is
when I see that light bulb go on and I
know that they're ready to fly the nest I
know that they're ready to walk out the
door and I know that I really no longer
have to worry about them.
They're able to stand on their own two feet. And at
that point they're able to speak
foodservice, speak hospitality. They can,
Karen can say something and it's instantly
recognizable to them and they can talk
back, a good conversation and that's how
you can tell they really have it. For me
I like the fact that I can work with
students in the beginning when they have
a hard time with their knives.
They're not real good at that yet or
their measurements, you know they didn't
study those a lot when they were in high
school so they really don't know 'em
that well but by the time they get done
in two years here they are able to plan
and execute a fabulous meal all by
themselves and show the world what they
can do and that is exciting for me. I
don't even have to step in most of the
time. They will have a big old, a
whiteboard that they'll write everything on, 
all the directions, the plans for the
week, how everything gets put together,
what it looks like, what the times are
and all their planning comes together
and that one afternoon and they've done
it themselves. I love to see that because
that's two years worth of work all in
one day. Um, the last luncheon, last maybe two
luncheons, almost always the last luncheon,
when Jeff and I start thinking about our
day because we're usually here about an
hour before the students on that last
day we look at each other and we said
boy we could probably not even come because we know we've handed the 
keys over and that they can do it.Yep.
And sometimes they don't know they can do it. And
that's that's again one of the
things that we build, we're confidence
builders. You know, we we let them know
that they can do it. We also let them
know at the same time that they have a
lot to learn and that this industry is
one that never stays the same for
for 24 hours. You'll get up tomorrow and
there'll be a new ad on TV about something
that's new. And the next day there'll be something new, so if you like
change, if you like excitement, if you
like newness, it's obviously an industry for you. And you know what it's not
an age thing either because it could be
16. We've had students as young as 16 in
here, still in high school and
students that have come in they're near
or at retirement age and they come and
they take the program. Just because they
love what we're doing here and they want to be involved with
it and that group from 16 to 60s gets
along just fine, no problem, everyone gets
along well and their, their combined
experiences mesh together to really make it work.
It sort of makes the older student
feel young and it gives the younger student
an idea
of what it is it takes to get to where
they need to be. And also they sort of
somewhat serve as a mentor sometimes for them as well.
So, it's a great collaboration putting old and young and new and fresh all together. And for anybody that's that's thinking about
coming here and maybe they're a little
short on cash, they need, they need a
little boost that way, we make sure our
students are well involved with
scholarships as soon as they get here.
Almost every one of our students has a
sizable scholarship that goes toward their
education and if not we try and help them
along to make sure they get one.
We had students last year last year, we had a student who
received an eight hundred dollar
scholarship from the Wisconsin Restaurant
Association, another one that had
received five hundred dollars from the
Wisconsin Restaurant Association, one
that received ten thousand dollars from
the National Restaurant Association and
then we also have developed a number of
internal scholarships as well as a few
of the community scholarships too that are
focused on just our program. So, don't let
that stop you. If that's something that
it's in your way don't let it be in the
way just come on in and talk to us and
we'll try and get that out of the way for you, so
you can join us.
 
