PUHI — Hayley Matson Mathes of the Hawaii Culinary Education Foundation was pleased with the sight unfolding before her Wednesday during the opening days of the Kauai Community College spring semester.
“Look at their faces,” Matson Mathes said while watching the KCC culinary-arts students engrossed in their individual projects with the help of visiting chef Kenneth Lee of XO Restaurant. “There is a lot of learning going on.”
The visiting chef program is brought to KCC through the efforts of the Hawaii Culinary Education Foundation, and was one of the events in the culinary-arts department greeting the students in the spring semester that opened Monday.
KCC Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Margaret Sanchez said the opening enrollment at the Puhi campus is slightly up, with a student population of 1,370, an increase from the 1,330 students recorded during the same period last year.
“This is still unofficial because we’re in the process of recording the Early College numbers,” Sanchez said. “We estimate that we should be up about 5% from last year.”
The final figures that include semester hours along with student population are also affected by late registration that continues through this afternoon at the One Stop Center.
“The culinary-arts students are learning modern plating techniques,” Matson Mathes said. “They’re also learning economical restaurant management, or transforming food scraps into fine dining.”
Lee, a graduate of Kapiolani Community College, has become one of the younger successful chefs in the restaurant world after taking over a restaurant in “the foodie neighborhood of Kaimuki” from his mother.
Sarah Burchard of the HCEF said, “His prudent-yet-creative approach to cooking aims to offer high-end dishes without wasting a dime. The result is some of the most interesting food in Honolulu, currently — beautifying food scraps — pushing the boundaries of creativity and maximizing efficiency to enable Lee to produce fine dining on a tight budget at XO.”
That knowledge overflowed to the students who worked with various items like orange juice, peas and berries to create sauces used for plating.
Sanchez said she is focusing on creating the idea that KCC is a “transfer school” rather than the existing perception that the higher-learning institution is a “technical school.”
The new chancellor, Joseph Daisy, selected to take the place of former chancellor Helen Cox who retired in December, is expected to be on campus in February.
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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 245-0453 or dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.
