The bell rings signaling the lunch hour at Juneau-Douglas High School (JDHS), Friday, Jan. 18, and students flood the cafeteria and are soon met with the intoxicating and exotic aromas of candied pork belly, kimchi and ramen noodles simmering in broth. It's not the high schoolers' typical lunch-hour menu, but today is special because they have visiting chefs from NANA Management Services (NMS), a liability company owned by NANA Development Corporation, and Naomi Everett, associate professor and interim chair for UAA's Culinary Arts and Hospitality Administration Division (CAHAD). NMS provides management and delivery food services for schools across the state, including both UAA and JDHS. The special lunch delivery? It's all part of NMS' annual Chef's Day tour to provide nutrition education to students, and to raise awareness of the food, restaurant and hospitality industry as a career option in Alaska and beyond.

"It's an opportunity for the kids to have a culinary experience outside of their regular day-to-day meals, a little bit of nutrition education and culinary careers," said Kari Sellars, B.A. Journalism and Public Communications '02, and marketing manager at NMS. "Because we were visiting some of our larger schools, we were going to be reaching a wider audience, which is why it was the perfect opportunity to invite UAA along."

"The kids really liked it," said Everett. She enjoyed traveling with NMS and was excited they extended the invitation to join the tour and help promote culinary careers and nutrition education to youth in Alaska. "One of the opportunities we have in education is to serve our communities. If we never go out into the community to let people know that these jobs are real jobs that they could be working, then how will they know?"

Promoting culinary careers

Everett is big on the community education piece. A graduate of CAHAD herself (A.A.S. Culinary Arts '00, B.A. Hospitality and Restaurant Management '11, M.S. Career and Technical Education '16), she worked in Alaska's food industry for many years and taught at UAA for more than 10 years before taking on CAHAD's interim chair role. Everett has a thorough knowledge of Alaska's culinary industry and says there are plenty of opportunities in food, restaurant and hospitality jobs statewide, especially in some of the more rural parts of the state. She said it's crucial for young people to know these fulfilling, profitable jobs exist because, as with many jobs in rural Alaska, it's challenging to recruit outsiders and get them to stay.

"Up on the North Slope Borough, they're always needing people; I can't remember the exact numbers, but they want their community members to fill those jobs, rather than bring someone in from out of state," said Everett. "I think it's important for a community to know that they can fill that economic need. It's an umbrella idea, but I think if we can get these kids to start thinking about and contemplating these careers, and let them know that there are great positions available for them."

Sellars echoed Everett's sentiments on educating students across the state on culinary jobs, which is one of the reasons Chef's Day was created. Secondly, the event introduces students in rural Alaska to new types of foods they wouldn't normally encounter in their everyday lives.

"Sometimes the opportunity to try healthy new items is difficult," said Sellars, citing towns like Kotzebue and Nome where food is expensive and the selection is not always as diverse because of items having to be flown in.

Creating opportunity

Sellars said about three years ago, NMS went on its first Chef's Day tour. She said the tour not only includes the ramen noodle lunch, but also a lesson on food and nutrition, as we all as an introduction to the culinary education opportunities around the state, including CAHAD at UAA.

"We wanted to create an opportunity for a chef to come up, talk to students about their culinary experience and to provide a culinary tasting experience," said Sellars. At the smaller schools NMS visits, they host a hands-on assembly with the chefs, followed by a show-and-tell involving a fruit or vegetable students wouldn't normally see in their local grocery store. Sellars laughed, saying one year they brought up dragon fruit and wowed the kids with the fruit's unique shape and color.

"We want to get them excited about trying different food and nutrition," she said.

At larger schools in communities like Juneau and Sitka, she said the chefs present the education portion of the program in the classroom during students' regularly scheduled home-ec or food prep classes.

"The kids are super excited for seeing and tasting food they've never seen before and the teachers are thrilled for a really good lunch," said Sellars. "Our goal was to create a culinary opportunity the kids had never experienced before. We also wanted to tie in an educational component of culinary and food education and how to get that here in Alaska and Outside."

Future chefs of Alaska

For Everett, she's excited about the community partnership NMS is creating with schools across the state, and is grateful they've included CAHAD. She said she hopes the Chef's Day event made a positive impression on the schoolchildren, middle school and high school students they met, and that maybe one day in the not so distant future, one of them will walk through UAA's doors to start one of CAHAD's programs.

"You never know the impact you have on someone," said Everett. "But we've made a connection with these schools and it's just opened the door for an opportunity to collaborate and communicate in the future."

Written by Catalina Myers, UAA Office of University Advancement