Imagine there was a new building where culinary arts classes were to be taught, and it was your job to choose the cooking equipment and gadgets needed to fill the drawers and racks of the teaching kitchens. That was the task assigned to Chef Denise Perry when Lincoln Land Community College in Springfield, Illinois, built its new Workforce Careers Center. Inside the center is a restaurant, line kitchen, food production lab, and pastry kitchen—all of which needed to be stocked. "It was like registering for my wedding," said Perry, 32, the school's lead culinary instructor. She had prior experience stocking working kitchens from her time at Robert Morris College in the Chicago area. Before Lincoln Land’s winter break in 2010, Perry was approached about selecting the 3,000 items the school’s new culinary center would require. She got her hands on a stack of food-related catalogs, including US Foods, JB Prince, Sur La Table, and Chef Rubber, and began flipping through the pages.
"In the old building (Menard Hall), we never had enough equipment for the students. Knowing there are 18 students in our classes, I did a visual walk-through of each class and what was needed," said Perry. "In garde manger (cold dishes), we were always short on fish poachers and enamel tureen molds. And I knew from teaching that we didn't have enough specialty pastry equipment."
She made her list on an Excel spreadsheet: meat mallets, springform pans, balloon whisks, cake decorating stands, French bread molds, refrigerator thermometers, plates and cups, tongs, condiment dispensers, Silpat silicone mats, measuring cups, induction saucepans, sheet pans, forks and spoons, cutting boards, dough dividers, sausage stuffers, apple corers, microplane graters, tart molds, pastry bags and tips, tomato corers, serving platters, chef knives, chocolate molds, rolling pins, and more.
"If we were making the mother sauces, I wanted each student to have a pan they could wash out and use again," said Perry, a graduate of the Seattle Culinary Academy. There were also appliances to choose, such as induction ranges, refrigerators, and metal countertops. And some envy-inducing items too: Robot Coupe food processors, PacoJet frozen dessert machines, and an anti-griddle that instantly freezes foods to subzero temperatures.
"We went for the industry standards, with a little bit of fun. We wanted the students to have equipment they would come across in the real world," she said.