Age Group:
EveryoneProgram Description
Event Details
No registration required!
Join Mica Chavez from the Santa Fe Cooking School during Culinary Arts Month to learn how to raise your meals to the level of art with plating techniques used in the restaurant industry. Mica will demonstrate various tools and techniques for elevating the presentation of food by adding the visual sense to eating. Participants will be able to try out some of the methods demonstrated.
About the presenter
Michelle Chavez learned to appreciate good food in the kitchens of her grandmother and mother, the aroma of which was mingled with love. Ingredients were always fresh and the family would eat together at the dinner table nightly. After growing up in New Mexico and Texas, the family moved to Northern California where they partook of the bounty of the Napa Valley region.
Having come of age in the San Francisco area during the rise of Chefs such as Alice Waters/Chez Panisse and Jeremiah Tower/ Stars, Deborah Madison/Greens, Cindy Paulson/Mustards, she got her first job washing dishes and rolling fresh pasta at 14, and was instantly hooked on food and restaurant culture.
After working in restaurants of varying quality, her first position in a formal restaurant was in a male-dominated kitchen that challenged her to succeed, and where she became the only female staff member in a kitchen of 20+ employees. She mastered every station at the restaurant and earned the coveted title of sous chef within 5 years.
For a number of years, she ran a variety of small kitchens around the Bay Area before returning to her hometown of El Paso to care for her grandmother and taking the position as Executive Chef at Café Central. She garnered national press in this position and was chosen as the Chef De Cuisine for the Professional Golfers Association Champions dinner in Rochester, NY.
Since then, she has worked in kitchens around the country and around the world including preparing meals for four U.S. Presidents, former Mexican President Vicente Fox, and numerous dignitaries and celebrities. She has been featured on CNN and CBS, as well as several Food Network shows such as Road Bros, State Plate, Twice as Good, and others.
More recently, she ran the Culinary Arts program at Santa Fe Community College for 11 years where she graduated a number of students who have gone on to work in kitchens across the globe, had appearances on Chopped and Moveable Feast, and one who was nominated for a James Beard award. She also taught culinary arts and New Mexico history at a charter school in Santa Fe and currently owns an eponymous catering company. She teaches at the Santa Fe cooking School, does private chef work, and holds a masters in sustainable food systems.
This program is made possible by Friends of the Santa Fe Public Library.
