First Day: Cohort 25 (Knife Skills w/Kitchen on Fire and more!)

The 25th group of culinary trainees has begun another 12 week session here at the St. Vincent de Paul "Kitchen of Champions." We have started with an incredibly diverse group of 22 people this go-around.

How many will need to drop out because of homelessness?
How many will leave early because of the intensity of the Kitchen?
How many will leave early due to employment?
How many will graduate?

It is a team effort to maximize the potential of our trainees, and our bff's Kitchen on Fire swung by for another informative knife skills demo and we are on our way. Enjoy some pictures from the first day of class.

Graduation Day!

We proudly graduated our 24th Cohort of the Kitchen of Champions on Thursday. Chef Mike C. from Kitchen on Fire gave an emotional keynote speech and we ate 20 different amazing appetizers until the janitorial staff rolled us into the parking lot.

Operation Frontline

Happy Friday! To us, Friday means, well, more of the same with the addition of a gloriously approaching weekend and... Operation Frontline!

For those of you unfamiliar with this wonderful program, Operation Frontline is a groundbreaking cooking based nutrition education program that teaches families how to prepare healthy, tasty meals on a limited budget. We get to host a nutritionist and chef who guide our trainees through their own fun, hands-on curriculum. Then we get to eat. Win/win.

Some photos!

Meet a Few From the Next Graduating Class

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51803098@N03/sets/72157624969234596/

Eat Real Fest 2010

The Kitchen of Champions served up delicious slow-cooked beef brisket sliders with a horseradish aioli and caramelized onions on a soft challah roll with house made slaw on the slide for the meat-eaters and polenta with a wild mushroom ragout and house made fire roasted tomato marinara topped with shredded parmesan for the veggies at the latest Eat Real Festival. We sold over 1500 of these dishes over the course of the 3-day festival at Jack London Square. During the fiasco, news heartthrob Jana Katsuyama covered our program in a brief segment on KTVU channel 2!

Enjoy the slideshow:

Kitchen of Champions Get an Intern!

Molly Aigner has signed on to work with the Kitchen of Champions staff through the Lutheran Volunteer Corps. Hailing from Seattle, Molly will be doing many different things including BLOG and FACEBOOK updates. We are excited to have her on board!

The first of many possibly embarrassing photos