CIC Student Daven Coad Wins People's Choice Award at the National San Pellegrino Almost Famous Chef Competition

Daven's winning dish, Sweet Tea Whisky-Braised Short Rib, Herbert Sweet Potato Puree, Pickled Collard Greens, and Candied Bacon, is being featured on the 181 Palmer Spring 2 menu. Make your reservation HERE. 

CIC Alum Jamie Simpson Takes The Chef's Garden to Ireland

Left column: Fermentation workshop, collecting pepper dulse, and harvesting kombu.
Middle column: roasting The Chef's Garden carrots for the pop-up dinner,
working on details of the dinner with Chef Enda McEvoy
Right column: Yuzu curd with cucumber blooms and baby cucumbers from The Chef's Garden,
preserved white asparagus, creme fraiche, trout caviar from the Burren Smokehouse

CIC alum Jamie Simpson is the Executive Chef Liaison for The Culinary Vegetable Institute, part of The Chef's Garden in Huron, Ohio. Following an appearance at the Charleston Wine + Food Festival, he left for Ireland to share some of their vegetables and knowledge.

Jamie toured Ireland with chef and author Jody Eddy and ChefJustin Wolfe. In Lisdoonvarnahey, they prepared a pop-up dinner for 60 with Chef's Garden ingredients and techniques, accompanied by Irish Chefs Enda McEvoy from restaurant Loam and Kevin Thornton of restaurant Thornton's. The guest list included some of the top food advocates in Ireland.

He studied seaweed on the coast and headed a workshop in fermentation at the home of Hans and Gaby Wieland, the Neantóg Kitchen Garden School. One of the attendees had high praise: "This was not only awesome, inspiring and a taste sensation, we have now inherited more than 24 jars with the most delicious, simple and at the same time sophisticated ferments from Jamie. We are kind of speechless about this generous and totally unexpected gift and we will look after them and put them to good use to further the cause of fermented foods."

The three chefs participated in the 20th annual Potato Day at The Organic Centre. Jamie spoke about The Chef's Garden's potato trials, highlighting the flavor profiles of the potatoes they grow. “This last weekend marked our 91st new potato variety tasted at the institute since I arrived,” he said. 

The visit was organised by our Board member and seaweed expert Dr. Prannie Rhatigan, who spoke at their Roots Conference in Ohio in 2015. This will be a unique opportunity to hear about the importance of potatoes as part of a healthy diet.
Jamie Simpson is the Executive Chef Liaison at The Culinary Vegetable Institute in Ohio. He is passionate about exploring different cultures and designs dishes around what is available on the farm that day. His commitment to micro seasonal cooking opens the door for him to be more creative while respecting the plants. His dishes look astonishing, always play tricks on the senses and are constantly evolving. http://www.culinaryvegetableinstitute.com

The visit was organised by our Board member and seaweed expert Dr. Prannie Rhatigan, who spoke at their Roots Conference in Ohio in 2015. This will be a unique opportunity to hear about the importance of potatoes as part of a healthy diet.
Jamie Simpson is the Executive Chef Liaison at The Culinary Vegetable Institute in Ohio. He is passionate about exploring different cultures and designs dishes around what is available on the farm that day. His commitment to micro seasonal cooking opens the door for him to be more creative while respecting the plants. His dishes look astonishing, always play tricks on the senses and are constantly evolving. http://www.culinaryvegetableinstitute.com

The visit was organised by our Board member and seaweed expert Dr. Prannie Rhatigan, who spoke at their Roots Conference in Ohio in 2015. This will be a unique opportunity to hear about the importance of potatoes as part of a healthy diet.
Jamie Simpson is the Executive Chef Liaison at The Culinary Vegetable Institute in Ohio. He is passionate about exploring different cultures and designs dishes around what is available on the farm that day. His commitment to micro seasonal cooking opens the door for him to be more creative while respecting the plants. His dishes look astonishing, always play tricks on the senses and are constantly evolving. http://www.culinaryvegetableinstitute.com

CIC Alumni Successes

CIC is very proud of the contributions that our alumni are making to the hospitality industry in Charleston. Here's the latest CIC ad, which was placed on the back outside cover of the City Paper's popular DISH magazine. It features Blythe Hill, Director of Sales and Hospitality for King Street Hospitality Group; Micah Garrison, Food and Beverage Director for Middleton Place; and Josh Shea, Food and Beverage Director for the Charleston Riverdogs.

CIC/MUSC Culinary Health Classes Featured in The Post and Courier

In today's Post and Courier, Food Editor Hanna Raskin reported on CIC's partnership with MUSC to offer Culinary Health classes, "a new elective course for health college students that melds cooking instruction with dietary science." 

Held in CIC kitchens on the Palmer Campus, the class is taught by CIC Chef Instructors Miles Huff, Ward Morgan, and Kevin Mitchell in conjunction with Debbie Petitpain, the Sodexo Wellness Dietitian at MUSC and MUSC health promotion director Susan Johnson. Johnson says that there's already a waiting list for the next section to run. 

Read the complete Post and Courier story here.

UPDATE: From February 25th to 28th, Johnson, Petitpain, and Huff attended the "Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives" conference and workshop hosted by The Culinary Institute of America on its Napa Valley campus. 

Huff writes: "The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Department of Nutrition sponsored the conference. There were approximately 400 attendees with more than two-thirds being health care professionals. The workshop provided demonstrations of healthy cooking, recipes, healthy cuisines, and information on using local healthy foods.  Many of the general sessions shared information about fad diets, food labeling, child nutrition, benefits of plant-based diets, and statistics about the state of our nation's health. 

"Much of the information gathered will be shared and help promote CIC's Sports and Health Nutrition program, our continued training of the school cafeteria workers in our state, as well as our new initiative, the Culinary Health classes."