Compassion and Culinary Arts

Dennis, for example, a Chef-in-Training student interviewed on the day of his graduation this past June, admits that even with certain challenges, such as sore feet at the end of the day, “certain joys of the experience allow me to forget about the pain of the experience. Sometimes I come here in the morning and I feel that joy within, that enthusiasm, which really makes me want to get down to work.” Always a fan of desserts, Dennis never had an interest in baking until he “learned to love it” at The Doe Fund. “I kept watching certain people bake things and I was like, ‘Wow, that looks good,” he relates, which eventually lead to a deep interest in the craft. Now, he impresses diners and coworkers alike, and is able to prepare his favorite dishes. “I’ve always loved cheesecake, and now I have the opportunity to actually make it.” Thus, when asked if he would recommend the program to others, he replied with an unequivocal yes: “It’s a real great experience. I woke up this morning, and I kind of felt sad that this was the last day of class, because I like to experience the challenges we go through. It molds you and makes you a better person.”

While the reviews from Leroy and Dennis are laudatory, they are not unique among Chef-in-Training participants and graduates. To illustrate, Iric, a classmate of Dennis’s, seconds his peer’s desire for the class to be even longer. According to him, part of the program’s appeal includes the open and invigorating attitude of Chef Fertitta: “The first week we got here,” Iric explains, “it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, you got selected to be here, now you need to pay attention,’ it was like, ‘Look, you got selected to be here, so have fun.” Part of this fun involved the huge amount of learning involved — a type of learning that went beyond basic cooking skills into fostering an appreciation for cooking as an artform. As Iric describes it, “I thought it was going to be like salt and pepper with chicken, but it was like thyme and rosemary.” Furthermore, although the culinary expertise he learned under the guidance of Fertitta will stay with him going forward, Iric cites communication as an additional skill he honed in the program. “We’re all from different areas, we haven’t all seen each other before and don’t know each other at first, but after a week or two, we realized we had to communicate. That’s when things started coming together. . . . We all just got feedback from each other.” He now looks forward to taking his advanced abilities out into the world at large, thus echoing Dennis, who says of the journey: “It’s not something that you can just do and then forget about. It’s something that sticks with you. I’m glad that what I learned in this program is going to stick with me.”

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