Hometown Cooking

by A.D. Amorosi

Wherever you go in Philly restaurants, you'll find out-of-towners at the controls — chefs trained in other cities, now using your foie gras, grilling your veal shanks. Charlie Schmidt wants to change that. As cooking instructor for the "Opportunities In Culinary Arts" program, run by the late Reverend Leon Sullivan's Opportunities Industrialization Center, Schmidt has spent a decade training and placing his local students in the Philly restaurant workforce. "It's like Sullivan's motto — we're helping people help themselves," says Schmidt. When he isn't teaching in Temple University's Food and Beverage department, Schmidt is a corporate chef/consultant for Alouette Cheese — and in return the New Holland, Pa., company has sponsored Schmidt's latest foray into student motivation: a recipe writing and cooking competition.

Chef cook-offs we know, but the writing aspect is an opportunity for students to take in the ecclesiastics of epicureanism. "Part of my curriculum has to be paperwork — to communicate, in a standardized way, the lingo of the business," says Schmidt. "What comes next is getting what you write onto the plate." The contestants' interrelation between word and product will be judged by Schmidt, Twenty Manning's Kiong Bahn, Pif's David Ansill, former Markers' chef Vince Albericci, former Le Bec Fin chef Daniel Stern and Patti Klein of the Restaurant Collection. Entries will be assessed in terms of taste, presentation, originality, difficulty, the quality of the recipe and how they've followed Schmidt's format.

Beyond the accuracy and taste, though, there must be love, something that Schmidt seems to instill in his students. Daniel Stern agrees: "First, a great cook needs to be passionate about what he or she is doing. After passion, a great cook needs discipline. Cooking is all about heat and time and taste. It takes practice and hard work to coordinate all those things and find the patience to balance all of them."

As for the recipe portion, Stern will be looking for clarity and attention to detail. "The steps have to be well-defined and the ingredients measured properly, or else the writer is just frustrating the person using the recipe."

Schmidt knows his students — who run the gamut from high schoolers to 50-year-olds, grouped in three sessions of nine to 10 students a year — are up for any challenge. "Some are novices, some have been in the biz for years, some have been in fast food and want to better themselves. But every restaurant in this city has our graduates. Our only limitation is the size of our kitchen."

Student Recipe Writing & Cooking Competition, Thu., June 30, 11:30 a.m, free, Philadelphia OIC, 1231 N. Broad St., fourth floor, 215-236-7700.