The meeting was held at Barry Goldwater High School’s Culinary Arts department in the school restaurant, Avenue 27. Barry Goldwater High School, BVGHS  is part of the Deer Valley Unified School District, and their address is 2820 W. Rose Garden Lane Phoenix, AZ 85027.

You’ll find more information about the program under the BGHS Career and Technical Education tab or on the Culinary Arts program’s website. Culinary Arts is one of two Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs offered at BGHS; the other is Drafting.

Avenue 27 is the student-ran restaurant at BGHS and they note, there are three more a la carte dinners scheduled for this semester; April 5, 12, and 26. Here is a copy of the menu, if you are interested in attending, you’ll need to make reservations. Email them at Avenue27@avusd.org

Before every During the ACFAZ board meeting, we talked about the Western Regional Conference in Minneapolis, March 31-April 2. We have some members attending but also, our own Chef Tuan Butch Raphael is up for the Nestle Professionalism award and Chef Lenard Rubin is up for the Hermann Rusch award.

Starting the ACF Apprenticeship program in Arizona took a step forward with the first confirmed facility and chef on board. Executive Chef Andrew Helmandollar with Casino Arizona will be starting the program for his company and has been waiting for the ACF online material to get through the testing period, which is now done and ready to go. Following up with Chef Helmandollar is next and learning more about the ACF Apprenticeship program.

Another fantastic step forward is connecting with high school culinary arts directors to share with them the ACF Certified Fundamental Cook, CFC certification. Here is the CFC application. For some, the skills and knowledge these students acquire in this program help set the course for their career and with the CFC certification, this gives students their first level of certification when they graduate which will give them an edge in the workforce.

Chef Ryan Mattheis of BGHS hosted the meeting with some of their culinary students and sampled items from their menu. During the general meeting, Chef Mattheis and Chef Dina Alrieri of UMOM had an awesome dialog about the CFC and you could see Chef Mattheis thinking about how that would work for his students. Chef Alrieri ran the pilot program at the Center on Halsted in Chicago, which makes this connection even more exciting. Learn more about her experience with that here.

The students at BGHS learn knife skills, garde-manger, food prep, baking and pastries, stocks, sauces, plating, and cooking techniques, and advanced French methods already so it makes sense to offer certification at the high school level.

BGHS also has internships programs available and always looking for to add to their list of potential employers. If you are a chef or food service operator interested in an internship or hiring students, you can learn more here.

We are working on a plan to share the CFC with other Arizona high school culinary art programs and their staff and look forward to sharing more about all of this as it develops.

This type of meeting is part of my “Why” for the Arizona Food Service Network and Chef Student Connect, great things happen when people connect. Next ACFAZ Meeting is April 8th at Metro Tech High School.