Watermelon is an on-trend ingredient and more foodservice operators are embracing this versatile fruit. It can also play an important role in culinary education from garde mange to flavor versatility. That’s why the National Watermelon Promotion Board has created culinary curriculum for instructors, students and chefs, accredited by the American Culinary Federation (ACF). In this first of a two-part series, check out lesson plans on cultivation, year-round availability and handling. In addition to the curriculum, check out these engaging videos that can add more to your (virtual) classroom.

• Lesson 1 is all about where watermelon come from. For a brief video tour of a field and packing shed, check out the Cultivation video.
• Lesson 2 highlights watermelon availability. To learn more about where watermelon comes from throughout the year, check out the Year-Round Story highlighting growers and chefs from different regions in North America.

Perfect timing to increase your knowledge of a much-loved fruit! There will be 5 lesson plans which were designed with culinary education in mind. Take advantage and earn some Continuing Education Hours!

The Future of CAFE

Things used to be far simpler! For almost 20 years we have worked to fulfill our mission statement: to link the foodservice industry with the foodservice classrooms.

How? We launched an on-line magazine, “The Gold Medal Classroom” which has fantastic resources and columnists and feature articles geared to our readers in the kitchen classrooms.

We launched a yearly Leadership Conference in order to highlight both industry trends as well as share educational best practices.

Eight years ago, we saw the need for and initiated a yearly Deans and Directors Retreat which has successfully dealt with topics ranging from branding your program to handling inevitable change.

So along comes 2020, a year with no opportunity to Meet and Greet … how can we not only serve you in the most challenging times EVER, but also move CAFÉ into your arsenal of tools going forward?

What's Next?

We will launch the one-day Taste of CAFÉ events in the winter of 2021. We have some amazing topics and hosts selected and you will have your choice of workshops ranging from converting to on-line courses to Edible Art!

We are putting together some Digital Workshops which will join many others but will differ in that they will be specifically geared to instructors.

The Big News

CAFE will launch twice monthly CAFE TALKS podcasts beginning this summer. We will have people interviewed that will intrigue you, instruct you and definitely speak to you. The programs will be moderated by Paul Sorgule from Harvest America and produced by My Company Radio, a hospitality-focused platform founded by Chef Charles Carroll.

We will need your help!

When we roll out, we will need a gang of CAFÉ friends to help us push the podcasts and ask for subscribers. There will be no cost to the listeners and that is due to the Title Supporter, American Technical Publishers.

You all are part of what they call a “Launch Team.” We’ll send you the links and we’ll hope you will help us promote these conversations.

This is the future of CAFÉ: different communication tools using different approaches but all a part of what we have tried to do for all these years.