Fresh mango, in abundance this summer, delivers flavor, color, texture and nutrition to menus. To celebrate, Chef Allen Susser shares his recipe for a refreshing fruit salad.

When June rolls around this year, be prepared to observe Mango Month with style. Fresh mango delivers both flavor and nutrition, qualities restaurant patrons appreciate, while mixing easily with savory, sweet and spicy ingredients. And fresh mango is plentiful, especially during the summer months.

“Fresh mango is available year ʾround, but we typically see the highest volume overall with at least three mango varieties in the market in June,” says Rachel Munoz, marketing director for the Orlando, Fla.-based National Mango Board. “The crop comes just in time to kick off summer with the unmistakable, signature flavor that fresh mango brings to menus.”

The third installment in a series on effective professional-development activities performed by students outside of the classroom.

By Dr. Fred Mayo, CHE, CHT

Last month, we discussed how to assign observations conducted outside of the classroom and how to make them helpful in expanding our students’ education. This month, we will discuss shadowing individuals, another way to enhance the professional development of our students through encouraging learning outside of the classroom.

Obtaining Permission
If you want students to shadow a professional, it is important to consider whom you want them to shadow and what you want them to observe. You might have in mind the work of a chef in a certain type of restaurant, a maître d’hôtel or hostess in a fine-dining restaurant, or a purchasing agent for a hotel with several food and beverage outlets. If you know these individuals and want to set up the shadowing experience, it will be a lot easier on your students.

If you ask your students to make the arrangements, however, they learn a great deal more about making appointments and conducting themselves well with professionals. Even if you want your students to make the appointments, you might want to develop a list of local chefs and other culinary professionals who are willing to be shadowed and then share that list with your students. It can work well any way you choose; just consider what structure and level of assistance make the most effective learning opportunity for your students.

As instructors, we often think we are not doing much. But, says Chef Weiner, we are actually changing the world with every student.

By Adam Weiner, CFSE

In May 2014 I shared a graduation speech for you to give to your students. One year later I think it is time to take a break from my “how to” articles of recent months on ordering, blanching, measuring, etc., and have us all take a moment to realize the impact we have on the world as culinary instructors. This applies to high schools, culinary academies, community colleges and four-year institutions.

Yes, the modern culinary world gravitates out from us. In the previous era, which didn’t end all that long ago, learning on the job or being an apprentice was the norm.

Today, almost everyone gets some form of culinary training before hitting the terra-cotta tiles of a commercial kitchen. We as instructors have a duty to send them out into the world with basic skills, a passion for cooking and, more importantly, knowing how to work. (As I frequently tell people, I don’t teach people how to cook; I teach them how to work in a commercial kitchen.)

Graduates will not remember many specifics of their educations, and will even realize that so much they thought would be important to their life paths isn’t. But they will remember those who influenced their learning in meaningful ways.

By Paul Sorgule, MS, AAC

Another academic year has come and gone. After students walk across the stage, every administrator, faculty member, student and parent has an opportunity to reflect on the two or four years that went into making graduation possible.

Deans and directors are beginning to plan time into their summer schedules for review of curriculum, some overdue maintenance on kitchen facilities, completing outcome assessment materials from the year coming to a close, and justifying budgets nearing the end of a fiscal year.

Faculty are putting course materials to bed and cleaning offices as they head into some well-earned time off. Students are breathing a sigh of relief combined with that uneasy feeling as they enter the workforce, and parents are still glowing with pride—knowing that their son or daughter has just completed another phase in his or her life.

Chef Charlie Ayers and other celebrity chefs support Earth Day San Francisco in honor of Earth Month.

Rock the Earth of Denver and Calafia Café of Palo Alto, Calif., held a joint fundraiser in honor of Earth Month on April 17. The popular café, owned by celebrity chef Charlie Ayers (pictured), hosted Dine Out for Earth California to celebrate the local food movement.

Several renowned Bay Area chefs joined Ayers in preparing a prix-fixe six-course meal starring locally sourced ingredients. Brews were provided by Palo Alto Brewing Company and wines were donated by Whitcraft Winery, Seamus Winery and Domenico Winery. The event also celebrated music provided by the Bay Area’s Dan Lebowitz (ALO), and Bo Carper and Rajiv Parikh (New Monsoon).

Proceeds from the evening benefited Rock the Earth and Earth Day San Francisco. Rock the Earth is a national not-for-profit environmental organization that works to protect and maintain America’s natural resources to ensure a healthy and sustainable environment through partnerships with the music industry and the worldwide environmental community. Earth Day San Francisco commemorated the 45th anniversary of Earth Day.