They aren’t top chefs just yet, but the high school kids in the Culinary Arts program at CATEC (Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center) are No. 1 in our hearts right now. Here’s why: Thanks to a class project that began in November 2007 called “One year of Blessing, Caring, and Thanksgiving to people in need, a commitment that never ends,” the kids received a grant of $2,500 from SkillsUSA—a national organization that supports vocational and technical school programs. The money will go toward facilitating the year-long community service project in which the budding young chefs and their teacher—UVA grad Bob Bressan—will provide food and food services to at least one area organization each month, from setting up a food booth at the annual holiday Toy Lift, to catering whole meals for the Salvation Army, to baking cookies for individual nursing homes.
 Slice and nice: Cam Taylor is one of the budding young chefs in the Culinary Arts program at the Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center who will provide food and food services to at least one area organization each month. |
Of course, the program is not all about serving the community, but about serving the students as well. “We want to give the kids real world experiences and to get them passionate about it,” Bressan says. “We also want to introduce the community to the talents these kids have.”
Because, let’s be honest, the community often views “votec” as the place where the kids with the discipline problems and the learning disabilities get dumped. But Bressan says that the 27 kids from Charlottesville, Albemarle and Fluvanna in his culinary program run the academic gamut from those barely staying in school to AP students, and from those who just think it’s fun to eat free food to those who are aiming for top culinary schools after graduation (and then coming back to town to cook for us, we hope). And all of them, he says, are subject to a rigorous program that includes classroom studies on such nonfluffy food subjects as microbiology and the connectivity of tissues, as well as instruction in operating some pretty dangerous industrial kitchen equipment.
Bressan predicts that with all of the food prepping and chopping and sautéing and serving (not to mention all of the clean-up!), the program will include a whopping 950 hours of community service this year. That makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside—and very lazy.
Gettin’ spiffy
On the Friday night before Christmas, Restaurantarama went through the typical weekly ritual of picking a place for pizza. We like to change it up each Friday to keep tabs on all of the parlors, but after determining that Sal’s Caffe Italia on the Mall was next on the rotation, we were shocked to discover the place was closed! “Closed for the holiday” is what the sign said. We have to admit, we swore out loud. How dare a pizza place be closed on a Friday night? God forbid we have to rethink our entire evening on the fly! And there are still 72 shopping hours left before the big day—what gives?
But then we calmed down and thought, hey, that’s kind of nice. The beauty of being a family-owned restaurant is that you get to close up shop and actually be with your family once in a while. Contrast that with a few area Starbucks stores, which stayed open even on the 25th. Jesus believer or not, can’t you people lay off the froufrou mocha latte for, like, one friggin’ day?
O.K., holiday hours aside, that episode of stamping our feet in protest outside of Sal’s gave us an opportunity to peer in the windows and see some lovely little renovations underway. It looks like Sal’s has some new paint, a new tiled roof over the kitchen area, a flat screen TV and new tables and chairs. We can’t wait to experience the new look and feel now that the friggin’ holiday is over and we finally can get some friggin’ pizza.
By the way, Blue Light Grill is also closed for renovations until January 18.
Got some restaurant scoop? Send tips to restaurantarama@c-ville.com or call 817-2749, Ext. 48.