Career Development Programs

Career Services stays on the pulse of student and alumni needs with its ongoing Career Development series. These quarterly programs, which are free and open only to current students and graduates of the Institute’s career programs, address various employment issues affecting today’s food professionals. Please RSVP via placement@iceculinary.com.

Do you ever wish you could be your own boss? Join our alumni panel of food professionals for a how-to discussion on successfully navigating the food freelancer world. Learn about how to break into career paths from catering and personal cheffing to food styling and recipe writing/testing, and how to keep those assignments coming. A question and answer session will follow. Please RSVP to placement@iceculinary.com or 212-847-0700 ext. 429.

What began as a biannual job fair has steadily grown into a not-to-be-missed networking reception for current students and alumni alike. Our Winter Career Fair will bring together employers from virtually every niche of the food business (catering, large restaurant groups, corporate dining, hotels and much more) as well as our network of "connected alumni." If you’re looking for part- or full-time opportunities or just want to talk with food-industry professionals, chefs or other grads about future endeavors, here’s your chance to gain the information and contacts you need to make your next move. Remember to bring lots of resumes! Please RSVP to placement@iceculinary.com or 212-847-0700 ext. 429.

Mix, mingle and meet your fellow alumni. This is a great chance to catch up with old friends and make some new connections. Lots of refreshments and light bites will be on hand to enjoy while chatting with other ICE friends. Door prizes and other giveaways too! So ring up your old class buddies and head on over. Note: Each ICE alum may bring one guest. Please RSVP after March 1, to placement@iceculinary.com or 212-847-0700 ext. 429.

Professional Demonstrations and Lectures for Career Students, Alumni
and General Public

These enrichment classes focus on cooking- and beverage-related elements of the food industry. Students and alumni must pre-register either in person with customer service on the 12th floor; by email at classcredits@iceculinary.com; or by phone at 212-847-0770. If leaving a voicemail, please identify yourself as a student or alumni, then state your student ID number and the name and date of the class for which you wish to sign up. The general public is warmly encouraged to attend.

Please check in with customer service on the 12^th floor before entering the demonstration or lecture.

How are your knife skills? How exact are your tournéed vegetables? This ancient culinary craft, the most difficult of knife skills is still on the plates at top restaurants, be they French, modern American or fusion cuisine. Go back to the basics with this workshop that proves that perfection comes through repetition. Open to career culinary students and alumni only; $5 registration fee. Wear your full uniform and bring your own knives.

Now celebrating its 20th year in business, City Bakery remains a favorite downtown spot to enjoy both exceptional, handmade pastries, as well as Union Square's most popular farmer's market driven lunch. Join cookbook author Alexandra Leaf for this up close and personal encounter with Maury Rubin, creator, baker, and designer of City Bakery. Learn how he began his career doing anything but pastry, but later studied and apprenticed in France and conceived the idea of what would later become his hugely popular New York destination. Rubin will share his insights on the business of baking, including current trends and observations, and discuss Birdbath, his newest green bakery concept, while you enjoy a tasting of select City Bakery pastries. Open to current career students and alumni; $5 registration fee. General public $40.

Join Pastry Chef-Instructor and sugar expert Kathryn Gordon for this fun session, during which she will create a winter-themed, completely edible sugar showpiece featuring classic sugar techniques. You will see and discuss sugar casting, pulling and blowing, and how to "glue" the components together securely. She will provide you with the basics of sugar cooking in a handout, and discuss pastilllage and air brushing. This will be a rare opportunity to see a sugar showpiece created and assembled in real time. Open to current career students and alumni; $5 registration fee. General public $40.

In this half demo, half hands-on class, Chef-Instructor James Briscione will give you a general introduction to the uses of sous vide and low-temperature cooking applications. He will cover concepts such as food safety in sous vide and low-temperature cooking and uses of sous vide for storage, compression, pickling and infusion, clarification, and aeration. Dishes prepared will include short ribs at 72, 48, and 24 hours; chicken breasts and legs; pasteurized beef "tartare"; pork ribs; duck breast; vegetables; creme anglaise; and poached pears. Open to career students and alumni only; $15 registration fee.

Join renowned Chef Andrew Carmellini, of Locanda Verde and the newly opened The Dutch, an American restaurant, bar, and oyster room, for a frank conversation about life after culinary school. He will discuss the restaurant business, what it's like after culinary school, and what is expected of you when you join the ranks of a real restaurant. He will have a candid talk about the realities of the demands that will be placed on you by the chefs and businesses for which you will be working. No sugar coating: you will get the real deal of what you need to do to not only succeed, but to not fail. This opportunity for a real conversation from a great chef and experienced restaurateur is invaluable for any student changing career or just choosing the hospitality industry as his/her profession. Whether a line cook, sous chef, pastry cook, or pastry chef, you need to hear in all honesty what it takes to make it in this industry. Chef Carmellini is also author of Urban Italian: True Stories and Simple Recipes from a Life in Food (Bloomsbury, 2008) andAmerican Flavors (Ecco, 2011). He has worked with ChefGray Kunz at Lespinasse, at Le Cirque, opened Daniel Boulud's Cafe Boulud, and has won a Food & Wine Best NewChef award as well as two prestigious James Beard Foundation Awards. Open to current career students and alumni; $5 registration fee. General public $40.

Barely a year after joining Daniel Boulud's restaurant group, Chef Jonathan Kinsella is now executive chef at the new epicerie Boulud, an Upper West Side eat-in and take-out market filled with signature house made charcuterie, artisanal cheeses, delicious soups, salads, sandwiches, fresh breads and pastries. Join him for a demonstration and tasting of classic French Cuisine on the go with his skilled and refined techniques that you can savor at epicerie Boulud. Career opportunities with the parent company of Daniel Boulud's culinary empire, The Dinex Group-Restaurant Daniel, Cafe Boulud, Bar Boulud, DBGB's, Boulud Sud and epicerie Boulud in New York City as well as other restaurants in the US and abroad-will also be discussed. While going to culinary school in Cincinnati, Chef Kinsella worked at The Maisonette, a local French restaurant that, at the time, boasted America's longest running streak of Mobil Five Star Awards. Upon graduating in 2005, Jonathan went to work as chef de partie at Chicago's Tru. In 2007, the Chicago's Mobile Five Star Peninsula Hotel hired Kinsella as chef de cuisine for The Lobby Restaurant, the Bar and the hotel's room service. In August 2010, Kinsella joined Bar Boulud in New York City as executive sous chef. Open to current career students and alumni; $5 registration fee. General public $40.

In this half demo, half hands-on class, Chef-Instructor Chris Gesualdi will teach you how to use hydrocolloids to achieve new results in the kitchen. You will learn about and use xanthan gum and carrageenan, as well as perform spherification and reverse spherification. Open to career students and alumni only; $15 registration fee.

Join ICE alumna Amy Eubanks, who was promoted to executive chef last year at restaurateur Chef Laurent Tourondel's BLT Fish, as she demonstrates some of her favorite fish dishes. Chef Eubanks started working with Tourondel as an extern at Cello, where she ended up staying for two and a half years. While there she spent a year as poissonier, no small feat considering that the famed restaurant specialized in seafood. Because she wanted to learn how to cook meat, she then went to Cafe Boulud, where she worked with Daniel Boulud and Andrew Carmellini. When Tourondel opened BLT Steak in 2004, he hired her as a lead line cook, followed by a promotion to sous chef. Because of her strong seafood skills, she became sous chef of BLT Fish upon its opening, then chef de cuisine 2006 and executive chef in March 2010. Open to current career students and alumni; $5 registration fee. General public $40.

Roger Dagorn, wine director of Porter House New York, is one of only 180 Master Sommeliers worldwide. The recipient of many prestigious awards, he won the James Beard Foundation's 1996 Outstanding Wine Service Award and Chefs in America's 1991 Best Sommelier in New York. In 2008, Dagorn was named Sake Samurai, a prestigious honor from The Japan Sake Brewers Association that is currently bestowed to only 27 experts in the world, and only 8 outside Japan. Prior to joining Porter House New York, he spent 16 years at famed Chanterelle Restaurant, where in addition to providing guests with sensational wine pairings, he planned and coordinated sell-out wine dinners and explored and shared his remarkable knowledge of sakes. Currently, Dagorn is an adjunct assistant professor on wine education at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY. He received the Krug Award for Lifetime Achievement in Wine and Hospitality (first recipient). Join him for this incredible tasting of fine sakes, and discover their\ unique and rare qualities. Open to current career students and alumni; $5 registration fee. General public $40.

Michael Krondl is a food historian and the author of Sweet Invention: A History of Dessert, in which he travels the world to discuss the stories and legends we tell ourselves about our sweet indulgences. The book features cities such as Kolkata, Istanbul, Venice, Paris, Vienna, and Hershey, PA, allowing Krondl to explore sweets from a wide varieties of cultural and historical perspectives. He is also the author of The Taste of Conquest, The Great Little Pumpkin Cookbook, and Around the American Table. An awardwinning cooking instructor, food writer, and former chef, he has contributed to Gastronomica, Marie Claire, Family Circle, A Cultural History of Food in the Renaissance, and The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, among many other publications. He will demonstrate, and you will sample, Focaccia Pasquale, also known as Venetian Easter Cake. Open to current career students and alumni; $5 registration fee. General public $40.

Robert Danhi is the author of the award-winning Southeast Asian Flavors and an authority on the cuisines of Southeast Asia. He will demonstrate, and you will sample, two dishes from his latest book, Easy Thai Cooking: 75 Family-Style Dishes You Can Prepare at Home in Minutes (Tuttle Publishing, March 2012): Green Mango and Cashew Salad and Silky Pumpkin and Coconut Soup. Through his Los Angeles-based consulting firm, Chef Danhi & Co, he works with food manufacturers, restaurants, educational organizations, and profesional associations throughout the globe. He is a graduate from and adjunct instructor at The Culinary Institute of America, and has worked in restaurants from Los Angeles to Hawaii. Open to current career students and alumni; $5 registration fee. General public $40.

Learn the secrets of creating one of the most beautiful masks ever! Venetian Masks are stunning and opulent. They come in various colors with lots of gold details, relief work and lots of feathers. Some are less extravagant without feather, but equally stunning. In this demonstration, ICE's Master Chef, Cake Decorating Toba Garrett will share her secrets of creating this beautiful creation that will include how to mold a mask and how to airbrush and decorate it to perfection. Her most recent book, Wedding Cake Art and Design, won the 2011 International Association of Culinary Professionals Award in the Professional Kitchen category. She is also the author of Creative Cookies, The Well-Decorated Cake, and Professional Cake Decorating. Open to current career students and alumni; $5 registration fee. General public $40.

See a whole 80-plus-pound organic lamb be broken down into its primals, sub-primals and ultimately into roasts, portions and by-products. In this world of "boxed" meat, this is a truly unique demonstration, as Master Butcher Rudi Weid takes out his knives and starts from the head of the animal all the way to the back leg. Each section, cut and muscle will be discussed. You will be able to sample this freshness, as the portions that Mr. Weid fabricates will be grilled and roasted. Open to current career students and alumni; $5 registration fee. General public $40.