" Restaurant Review: Elevation; Cascade Culinary Institute's training ...
Teaching the culinary arts is not as obvious a process as an outsider might expect. There are surprises around every educational corner, as Thor Erickson, chef instructor at the Cascade Culinary Institute (CCI) on Central Oregon Community College’s Bend campus, illustrated in this story he shared with me last week:
“I teach a farm-to-table sustainability course,” Erickson said. “One day when we were at the farm harvesting carrots, I had one student who could not believe that carrots grew in the ground, rather than on a bush.
“When I washed the soil off one carrot and offered it to him to taste, he scoffed, as if I were trying to play a joke on him. ‘I’m not a fool,’” he said. “‘Carrots can’t be eaten raw.’ But I took a bite of the delicious carrot and offered him another one.
“He bit into it with trepidation, then smiled,” Erickson continued. “A few moments later, I looked over at the student, and he was crying. ‘Are you okay?’ I asked. He replied, ‘I’ve never seen a carrot that wasn’t cut into tiny cubes and frozen.’
[GIFT-WORTHY GROCERIES] Named in honor of their mothers' maiden handles, Tim Wilson and Luan Schooler's Irvington shop is an altar to all things foodie—selling excellent cheeses both local and imported, wines, pickles and mustards, chocolates and
