Culinary Arts

Students with Burlington County Institute of Technology's culinary arts department have been cooking up delicacies for Friday night's International Food Festival to mark the high school's 50-year anniversary. Many of the school's career majors will be contributing to the event, from banners and tickets produced by the print shop to a student-produced DVD to show the variety of the school's offerings, which have grown from machine shop and office skills to choices like performing arts, entertainment technologies, and public safety and more.

Here is a selection of cooking classes in the region. Check Web sites for additional classes and information. Classes are in Philadelphia unless otherwise noted. Albertson's Cooking School , Box 27, Wynnewood. 610-649-9290 ( www.albertsoncookingschool.com ). South African Foods, 6:30 p.m. Oct. 15; and, International Casseroles Your Mom Never Made, 6:30 p.m. Oct. 19, $45 each. Atlantic Cape Community College Academy of Culinary Arts , 5100 Black Horse Pike, Mays Landing, 609-343- 4829 ( www.atlantic.

Elio Borgia says he signed up for a six-month course in "culinary arts" at the A.P. Orleans Technical Institute because a school advertisement promised he would learn how to whip up a meal "truly fit for a king. " The ad asked: "Have you ever dreamed of preparing . . . tender meats served flaming with exquisite sauces? Pastries presented on a large silver tray - each with its own unique taste, texture and name - Linzer Torte, Creme Caramel, Charlotte Russe . . . ? "Well, fantasize no more.

Meredith Henry's April 15 article on the conference of the National Coalition of Alternative Community Schools was a disappointment. Three paragraphs were devoted to describing the participant's outward appearances. No mention was made of the 10 teachers and students who came from an alternative school in Japan, the award-winning Puerto Rican school from Chicago or the busloads from Santa Fe, N.M., and New Salem, Mass. The keynote address, "Commitment to the Future in a Nuclear Age," by Shelly Berman of Educators for Social Responsibility, was not mentioned.

The Camden County Technical School District yesterday approved a tuition increase of $2 per credit hour for its adult school for 2000-01. Since most full-time courses at the district's postsecondary technical institute are about 12 credit hours, that is an increase of $24 per course, said Gary Bennett, the district's assistant superintendent for business. Tuition will be $37 per credit hour for Camden County residents and $43 for everyone else. Tuition for postsecondary courses began in 1997 due to a reduction in state funding.

From age 12, Dawn McCoy worked in the local steak shop after school. At age 18, she became a manager with dreams of having her own business one day. Donna Marchesani sought a new career after Botany 500, her employer for eight years, closed. Previous experience set her on the food service path. Last week, both women received associate degrees in culinary arts/restaurant management from the JNA Institute of Culinary Arts on South Broad Street. Theirs were the first degrees awarded under an expanded program at the recently accredited and renamed school, which offered its first food-service trade classes in 1988 when it was solely J&A Catering.

The sign over the new culinary-arts high school on Emerald Street in Kensington reads: "One small school, one great place!" The Philadelphia School District sure hopes so. In its latest effort to remedy long-standing academic failure and disruption at large neighborhood high schools, the district has divided the former 1,132-student Kensington High into three smaller schools with different principals, each serving no more than 500 students....

The aromas aren't there yet, but the sparkling, literally "stainless" steel kitchens are enticing, primed for the unveiling next week of a new culinary-arts center in downtown Mount Holly. The $9 million center - inside a nearly 200-year-old bank building and annex - is Burlington County College's newest venture. Elizabeth Dinice, a chef whose resumé includes work at two of Philadelphia's finest hotels, is in charge. "The thing that gets me most excited is we have a demonstration theater, and we will have a restaurant right here in the middle of a thriving town where we can work with other restaurateurs," Dinice said.

The tenor and tempo of food education have been "kicked up a notch" this year. Some of the credit goes to the high-powered chef Emeril Lagasse, who spiced up our language with that phrase while heightening the flavor of recipes on his two successful TV Food Network shows, Essence of Emeril and Emeril Live. But it is the growing recognition of food and cooking as a serious - and lucrative - career goal in the booming hospitality industry that has swelled the ranks of professional-level cooking schools and classes.

Fueled by a rising demand for chefs, the region's largest culinary schools again are reporting record enrollments for the fall semester. The Restaurant School in West Philadelphia, which began in 1974 with a class of 12, this year will enroll 255 students - 235 students in its 18-month restaurant-management, culinary-arts and pastry-arts programs, and 20 in hotel management. Last year, a total of 179 were enrolled. The School of Culinary Arts at Art Institute of Philadelphia, which began with fewer than two dozen students three years ago in Center City, has just added a fourth kitchen to accommodate a new class of nearly 100 students.