Alvin Community College Awards Day

Every spring, the Alvin Community College school year comes to an end with many events, including awards day.  This year the Culinary Arts program was able to award scholarships to five of our students.  Pictures of the awards are below.

In this photo Chef Mary Bass is presenting Chinnia Duch with a departmental scholarship.  Also receiving a departmental scholarship but not pictured, was Joanne Ralowicz.

 Pictured is Chef Mary Bass awarding the Haak Vineyards Culinary Arts Scholarship to Jewellisa  Aguilar.
Chef Bass is the Executive Chef for Haak Vineyards in addition to being an adjunct faculty member at ACC.

 Pictured left to right is Chef Leslie Bartosh, CEC, FMP, program chair, Conseiller Culinaire Provincial; awarding Jessica Maness and Emily Baldridge the Chaine des Rotissuers culinary arts scholarship.

All the awards were well deserved.

Until next time.
Bon Appetit Y'all
Chef Leslie Bartosh

Friends and Family Night and End of Semester

I have taught culinary classes since 1996.  Up until this year if you had told me I would have a one armed culinary arts student, without prosthetic, I would have said unn huh.  If you had told me this same person would use a chain saw to carve ice, I would have asked: what did the Doctor give you?
I am here to tell you it is true.
Corey joined our program in August 2015.  He has been an inspiration to all of us.  He has inspired us not only with his since of humor but also his work ethic and attitude.  Thank you for sharing with us Corey.

Ice carving is one the few times in a year that our students do not have to wear their uniforms.
Here are a couple of more carvings.  We give each group of students a half block of ice and a stencil.

We use the best carving for our end of semester Friends and Family night.  Among our gests this year were Jody Droege, ACC Board of Regents;  Dr Albrecht, ACC President, and husband;  Dr. Cindy Griffith, VP of Instruction and husband, Dr. Linda Austin, Dean of Technical Studies and Jim Simpson Dean of Continuing Education.
Here are few photos from the event.

The evening culminates with our students joining their families for dinner.  The students did an outstanding job!  A big thank you to Chef Mary bass for providing the guidance to our students.
The cast of characters:  aka our students :-)

Until next time,

Bon Appetit Y'all
Chef Leslie Bartosh

Inspired Sausage

Like many folks, who are into food, I read a lot about food.  Sometimes I read something that sticks with me.  That is how this recipe came about.  Over the last few months I read two posts that took a slightly different approach to making a particular sausage and I wanted to make a sausage that was different than anything I had previously made.  By combining the two ideas I came up with the following.
This sausage starts with a Kielbasa flavor profile, but the meat is changed and some of the meat is hand cut instead of being ground.
Here are a couple of photos of the end product.

Here is the recipe.

2 parts pork butt, 1 part beef - chuck roast, 1 part hand cut pork loin medium to large dice. 

1814 gr meat
14 gr fresh garlic
26 gr kosher salt
13 gr coarse grind black pepper
9 gr paprika
2 gr marjoram leaves

Grind the pork butt and chuck roast 2 x coarse grind (1/2 inch) with the fresh garlic.
Mix in the spices and grind fine (1/4 inch).
Fold in the hand cut pork loin.
Vacuum pack or use a large ziplock and age in the refrigerator for at least 1 day, up to 2 days.
Stuff into casings and allow to age, uncovered in the refrigerator on a rack, overnight to form a pellicle.
Next day hot smoke for 2 hours at 190 f for two hours or until an internal temperature of 160 f is reached.  I used mesquite.

I hope you enjoy.

Until next time
Bon Appetit
Chef Leslie Bartosh