Brian Slattery Photo
Duck confit crostini and vegan mushroom sliders were on display at Elm City Market on Saturday evening — along with a recipe for launching new careers.
The food and the mission were intertwined at an event at the market hosted by the Connecticut Center for Arts and Technology (ConnCAT) culinary arts program. ConnCAT is a youth arts and adult career-training program in Science Park. The culinary program’s students brought samples of their work to the market, on the ground floor of the ritzy downtown 360 State high-rise at the corner of State and Chapel streets.
So the market’s aisles were crowded not with shoppers, but with diners — a gathering of city officials, community leaders, and the culinary students’ friends and family members. They came together to celebrate the market’s rejuvenation and the burgeoning partnership between the education program and the market since ConnCAT launched its Culinary Arts Academy Program in January.
Carlton Highsmith, a ConnCAT founder, walked the audience through the culinary institute’s history, from its conception in 2014 to a whirlwind 6 months of construction to openings its doors to its first students (read about that here).
“It’s efforts like this that will make people want to come to New Haven to work, and play, and live,” he said.
Matthew Nemerson, the city’s economic development administrator, explicitly tied the culinary institute to New Haven’s industrial past, as the Elm City continues to move from a manufacturing to a service economy. “The people who made this city, made things,” he said, addressing the culinary students. “And you are going to be making things, carrying on that grand tradition.”
Beyond the partnership between ConnCAT and the Elm City Market, and the coordination among them, the city, and various funders that made it possible, the evening celebrated the culinary students themselves, on the verge of finishing their program this fall — and the food they created.
On the menu that evening were grilled flatbread. Mediterranean salad, lamb kebabs with cous cous, vegan mushroom sliders, duck confit crostini, and a wide assortment of desserts. This reporter can say that the lamb was cooked perfectly, the cous cous was tangy and flavorful, and the vegan mushroom sliders, served on a soft roll with pickled red onions and tofu ranch sauce, made a strong case for giving up meat altogether if mushrooms can be made to taste like that.
Nixon, second from left.
“We all worked together to put it all together,” said Charles Nixon, one of the students. “That’s what made it come out so good.”
A 57-year-old Dwight neighborhood resident, Nixon had previously worked as a landscaper and in facilities maintenance at Yale. He saw an announcement for the program while “channel-surfing on television,” he said. He “signed up for it and got accepted.”
“I’ve always wanted to cook,” he said, in between serving out portions of lamb and cous cous.
“I always found myself in the kitchen creating recipes. I couldn’t do them again if you asked me to,” he said with a soft laugh, “but they always came out good.”
There’s a difference between cooking at home and cooking in a professional kitchen. “There’s a lot of pressure,” Nixon said, “because everything you create, your name’s on it. But I like the challenge of it. This has been a career change for me, and I’m just loving it.”
Nixon started the program in January. He’ll graduate in November, and is looking to possibly do his month-long externship before graduation right at Elm City Market.
The relationship between ConnCAT and Elm City Market was there from the culinary institute’s inception, according to Odell Montgomery Cooper, director of culinary arts. Her daughter, Jacqueline, was a student in the program and an employee at Elm City Market, and as the institute’s chef, Eric Blass, began talking about the kinds of ingredients they would be using, Jacqueline informed the class that Elm City Market carried the specialty items they needed. So Elm City Market’s relationship to the culinary institute grew, from grocery supplier to externship mentor, to potential employer.
In the externship phase of the students’ education, “they go in side by side with our chef,” explained Alexa Apotria, marketing manager at Elm City Market. The market’s different departments allow the students to follow their own passions, whether in the kitchen, the deli, or the bakery. “They love what they do. And we love what they do. And our customers love what they do,” Apotria said.
Elm City Market Chef David Lee agreed. Working at the market gives the students a chance to “get their feet wet” in the kitchen, he said, from meeting deadlines to learning to be a team player, in addition to honing their kitchen skills. He takes his job seriously as a mentor; “I truly believe,” he said, “that a good chef will inspire them to become a lot bigger,” whether that means working into a job at Elm City Market — or heading out to sea on a cruise ship.
Hair.
Which is what culinary student Stanley Hair is doing, as he begins his externship with American Cruise Lines in October.
“I just wanted to travel, see the world, learn new things,” he said. The 28-year-old was born in New York City and moved down south to Sumpter, S.C. as a child, then returned north at 19. He worked jobs in fast food and warehousing, most recently at Jordan’s Furniture, but is looking forward to getting into the kitchen as a baker and a cook — work he has always been interested in since high school.
Is he more of a baker than a cook? “Everyone in my class says yes,” Hair said, “but I’m learning both.” One of his current favorite dishes to make is alfredo with Bechamel sauce, “with a little bit of shrimp in it,” he said. “Perfect.”
Asked about the pressure that can come with working in a professional kitchen, Hair nodded seriously. He was ready. “I just want everybody to taste what I can do,” he said.
