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July: Celebrating Culinary Arts Month

Thomas Cuisine Celebrates Culinarians, Culinary Arts, and More

July is Culinary Arts Month, a time to celebrate the artistry and craftsmanship that goes into creating delectable, real food dishes. In the fast-paced world we live in, it’s easy to overlook the importance of genuine, homemade meals, but this month, we get the opportunity to celebrate the significance of our culinarians who cook from scratch to create remarkable dining experiences.

Who Counts as a Culinarian?

In our kitchens, all teams work in service of providing Real Food, therefore, throughout the day, we’re either cooking or supporting someone who is. In this way, all team members are considered culinarians. Our culinary teams are made up of a variety of skilled individuals such as formally trained chefs, house-trained cooks, dishwashers, baristas, front of house team members, cashiers, pastry chefs, managers and foodservice directors who are called to serve, delight, and create through creating top-notch dining experiences.

An aspect of our culinary teams that is often overlooked is how each person became a culinarian, why food is important to them, and what their favorite dish is. We likely all have a favorite homemade dish that comforts us, reminds us of a good memory, or simply delights our taste buds in a way that nothing else can. Food is the carrier and common ground of our personal story, memory, and culture, which creates a shared starting point for our teams to keep in mind as they work together. With this in mind, and in celebration of Culinary Arts Month, we’re inviting our culinarians to share their favorite dishes and why they became involved with the culinary arts.

Learn More About Your Onsite Culinary Teams

Whether you dine with us in a hospital setting, corporate setting, independent school, or senior living community, chances are you’ve interacted with our culinary crews on a daily basis. Even so, you may not know very much about the people who make your coffee and breakfast each day, and it can be interesting to learn the culinary backstory of our team members and get to know them. Likewise, even within our teams, it’s interesting to learn about each other as coworkers to help further our cultural understanding and appreciation toward one another while fostering comradery, which naturally makes our work days more enjoyable, comfortable, and approachable. When each person is valued, understood, and supported as a customer or as team member, we’ve found that people flourish and grow both as individuals, and as a group. Additionally, it’s fascinating to hear both the commonalities and the uniqueness of our favorite foods and why they’re important to us.

This July, we’re excited to connect with you more as culinarians by sharing our passion around our favorite foods and the art of culinary creation. Our commitment to scratch cooking is our way of ensuring that each person who dines with us gets the healthiest, most delicious dining options possible, and we’re pleased to offer greater human connection throughout Culinary Arts Month. Through this shared experience of cooking and sharing real food and our history as foodies, we hope you feel just a little more connected and familiar with our culinary teams.

Please enjoy the culinarian highlights below, we look forward to sharing an excellent dining experience with you soon within our healthcare, corporate, independent school, and senior living dining opportunities.

Featured Culinarians

Shane Lynch
Shane Lynch

Shane Lynch, Group Chef of Innovation and Advocacy

What’s your favorite dish?
 I really love rendang, an Indonesian dish. The dish is typically similar to a slow cooked beef made in a wok with caramelized coconut milk, spices, and fresh herbs. It sort of con fits the beef in the fat of the coconut milk, and pairs well with any side dish, usually local Indonesian vegetables and rice. This was a staple dish for me when visiting Indonesia, while I lived in Jakarta. I feel like it offered everything in one dish: a mild spicy heat paired with sweet and savory flavors of garlic, star anise, shallot, ginger, and a variety of local to Indonesia spices and fresh herbs.

Why did you become a chef?
I’ve always loved cooking and was curious about food. After growing up with basic staple foods, I wanted to explore creating flavor profiles with fresh ingredients. I started with baking and from there began creating my own foods with a focus on fresh ingredients to create delicious, flavorful, and interesting foods in comparison to the boxed versions I had grown up with. After high school, I was working for a chef and my Mother happened to also encourage me to go to New York to attend the CIA in Hyde Park, which I ultimately did. My biggest takeaway from that time in school was “preparation is everything,” and to be successful, I had to plan, be disciplined, and explore mentorships with Certified Master Chefs like Edward Leonard, and externships which exposed me to the importance of agriculture, fresh ingredients and how it impacts quality dining.

Roy Williams
Roy Williams

Roy Williams, Sous Chef

What’s your favorite dish?
I have always had an affinity for Greek foods, especially dolmades with avgolemono soup. Dolmades are grape leaves stuffed with rice and a beef and lamb mixture traditionally topped with avgolemono. Very simple but full of flavor!

There is something about the creamy acidity from the soup and the bitter richness of the grape leaves that can always bring me back to my childhood. Growing up here in Utah, my grandmother was the featured belly dancer at the Grecian Gardens in Midvale and every Friday for as far back as I can remember, our entire family would go and watch her dance. This was always accompanied by vast amounts of food. We had everything from souvlaki and calamari to moussaka and baklava.  A single bite transports me there every time.

Why did you become a chef?
I grew up an only child to a single mother that work 70 hours a week, hence if I wanted a hot meal I had to learn to cook. As a pre-teen I started watching every cooking show I could find, but my favorite was always Emeril Live. I would stand in my kitchen over the stove watching the tv through the pass thru window with the volume up as high as it would go and try to imitate what Emeril was making. From that point on I was hooked. I never attended a school, I just asked lots of questions and read every cookbook I could find as well as eating everything!

Looking for more? Additional Culinarian Highlights will be featured throughout the month! Check our social media pages to meet Biatriz, Vance, and Cameron.
Vance Wennerstrom
Vance Wennerstrom

Vance Wennerstrom, Chef de Cuisine

What’s your favorite dish?
Mexican Tacos or Enchiladas are my favorite food because there is such a large variety of meat and sauces that are spicy, earthy and herbaceous. Traditional Mexican food uses various types of peppers and chilis to add large amounts of flavor, I often enjoy adding some freshly squeezed citrus for acidityto achieve these really beautiful, well-developed flavors.

Why did you become a chef?
Over the years watching individuals prepare things their “own way” got me excited to learn to experiment with various combinations of spices and flavors.

Looking for more? Additional Culinarian Highlights will be featured throughout the month! Check our social media pages to meet Biatriz, Vance, and Cameron.