As local restaurants fight to stay afloat, A-B Tech’s Culinary Department has also struggled in the last month to function smoothly under area water restrictions. Hospitality Management and Culinary Arts Chair Cathy Horton said she’s amazed at how quickly her instructors have adapted, not just to changes in the way they use water, but also in adapting end-of-semester curriculum to make up for time lost during the hurricane.
“Students are doubling up on labs to make up for lost time,” she says. “They’re making up lost hours with lectures, demos, and labs.”
Horton says the department has had “tremendous expenses tied to their disaster” including losing multiple walk-in refrigerators and freezers and all the food they contained.
During this time of year, second-year culinary students work on global cuisine requirements where they prepare food from different countries for weekly Thursday meals served to campus and the larger community. The lack of potable water has thrown a wrench (or rubber spatula) in plans. The challenges of being forced to cook with bottled water and wash hands with boiled water have created added stress for students and instructors alike.
“All of these entail extra time and care in the kitchen with instructor oversight at all times”, Horton says, adding, “None of us will ever take for granted water from the taps in the future.”
But, our creative culinary crew has come up with a winning solution. Last Thursday they cooked the first of three weekly global meals which they will serve to the campus for free through the end of the semester (with the exception of Thanksgiving break week). To make up for time lost during the hurricane, the meals will double up on global flavors, combining them in tantalizing ways. According to Chef Bugher, last week’s meal was a fusion of Latin and Caribbean flavors with spicy jerk chicken, churrasco beef, and pulled pork tacos.
To relieve the added stress of cooking in the kitchen these days, the department has borrowed a grill from A-B Tech Madison to use through the end of the semester. And it’s not just ANY old grill.
The “Smoking Gun” grill has a storied history with the college. Created over the course of five years beginning in 2009, the grill is shaped like a gun and measures over six feet tall. It has an active life in Madison where it is used up to twenty times a month, by both the college and the community at large, for events including career fairs, weddings and private events.
Susan Russell, A-B Tech Madison’s welding instructor recalls how the grill came to be. The students had already created an offset smoker but had aspirations of something greater.
One of her students at the time, Devin Payne, had found a western-style pistol grill and shared it with the class, who liked the design. Russell was hesitant to agree to it, knowing it may cause controversy, but her students (pictured in the group photo at bottom of page) pressed her to ask then-welding chair Charlie Farmer, who gave it the okay.
Russell sketched up a design of her own using a computer drafting program, admitting she had to guess about the grill’s inner structure. Students then worked at building her creation over the next five years whenever they weren’t working on class assignments.
Though the original gun Payne had admired was made of sheet metal, the Madison grill is built of thick metal. “Ours is going to last for a century or more,” Russell says.
Despite its regular travels in Madison County, The Smokin’ Gun Grill has never been to A-B Tech Asheville, so this visit marks an important moment in its history. It was towed from Madison earlier last week and was used on campus in Thursday’s meal, which saw one hundred meals served.
For the A-B Tech Asheville Campus, the grill has provided a way to carry on in the wake of a disaster, at least until the potable water returns.
For A-B Tech Madison, it means being able to share a hand-crafted object that students created with love.
“The culinary department is the crème de la crème and they’re asking to use one of our grills?” says Russell. “I’m happy as can be. It will nourish and bring health to the community.”
