A Culinary Home Opens At ConnCAT

Charles Nixon, a student at a glistening new culinary arts academy in Newhallville, never thought that he would go into cooking as anything more than a hobby. Then he lost his job with AT&T.

Hoping to ​“give back to the community,” he started a business that was robbed, and lost everything he’s invested in it. He found himself unable to get up in the morning. Until he flipped on WTNH’s ​“CT Style,” and saw Chef Eric Blass doing a serious chiffonade on the big screen. At the end of the demo, Blass mentioned four words: ConnCAT. Culinary Arts. Teaching.

That was a revelation for Nixon, still in search of a new vocation. He put on a suit, marched down to Blass’ office at the Science Park home of the Connecticut Center for Arts and Technology’s (ConnCAT) , and sat down for an interview to see if he could join the burgeoning program.

The answer wasn’t just yes. It was welcome to the team.

Nixon’s story, punctuated with a poem honoring Blass and ConnCAT Executive Director Erik Clemons, was one of the testimonials shared Tuesday morning at a ribbon cutting and opening ceremony for ConnCAT’s new Culinary Arts Program, taught out of huge test kitchens and a soon-to-open cafe in the Science Park site’s lobby.

The brainchild of Clemons and ConnCAT Board Chair Carlton L. Highsmith, the program came out of a trip to Pittsburgh and discussions in November 2014.

In its current iteration, the program, which dovetails with ConnCAT’s mission of reaching out to the unemployed and underemployed, will run Mondays through Fridays for 11 months per year, with a four-week externship at the end.

Each cohort — about 20 students all interested in the culinary arts, and all admitted to the program free of charge — enters and finishes the program together, taking a ServSafe National Food Service Protection Manager exam at the end.

During any given week, the curriculum will consist of two lessons and some serious kitchen time per day, students working to master all aspects of food preparation, cooking, presentation, and cleanup.

“When Erik started talking to me about what they wanted to do, what I started to think about was not only the opportunity for the jobs, but the changing of the face of what it is to cook,” New Haven State Sen. Gary Winfield said of the program. ​“When we think about what it means to be the people you all are intending to be, we don’t think about the faces that we see here. This is important to me not only because it’s right across the street, but because it changes what we see as a possibility. It changes what those young people see as a possibility … This place has lifted up the young people that are in this city.” 

The fruits of that — sometimes literal — are being reaped as a cohort of 20 students gets to chopping, mixing, and baking in the classroom and the kitchen.

Addressing over 250 attendees, Nixon spoke on what the program has meant to him since he joined in January. 

“Life sometimes throws you curveballs,” he said. ​“When I came here, I was completely blown away … It’s such a powerful spirit here, a spirit of love, a spirit of happiness.”

“I’ve always had a passion to cook,” he added after the ceremony, back in is home turf of the kitchen. ​“There’s such a diverse range of ethnicity, age and talent here … we are all looking forward to maintaining 100 percent retention as each week goes by. When I saw this as a possible opportunity, I didn’t hesitate.” 

He’s not the only one. Student Stanley Hair of New Haven is hoping to move up from his job at Jordan’s Furniture to meal prep on a cruise ship after the program is over.

“I’ve liked baking since high school,” Hair said while leading a tour of the Academy’s Kitchen Classroom, where Blass demos a meal each day before students try cooking it. ​“But I wanted to learn how to do more.”

That’s the consensus outside of the kitchen and the classroom, too.

“It’s like a family,” Blass said after the event. ​“I feel very fortunate … Watching them [the students] work is absolutely amazing because their skills are incredible. It’s a lot — the days start earlier and earlier and end later and later, but it’s a labor of love. I’ve never had a job where 12 hours goes by and … the days just vaporize.”

“I think the one thing that makes this organization successful is that we look at the student holistically,” he added. ​“Everything in their life that we can try to help them with — and I try to bring that into the classroom. I’m not just teaching them cooking. I‘m teaching them management skills, conflict resolution, professionalism, pride — so they’re learning a lot of skills other than just cooking.”