The 2019 year marks Huatung Culinary Workshop’s second consecutive year running. Two workshops took place sequentially between the 10th to 16th August. The first three-day workshop which took place in National Taitung College invited culinary professionals, teachers and students from the Huatung, Pingtung and Tainan area to participate, while the second four-day workshop was designed for Junyi School of Innovation teachers and senior high students taking place at the school. Led by Drs. Daniel and Alice Swift of Swift Hospitality Consulting, LLC., the 2019 workshop focused not only on cooking and baking but life lessons and attitudes which can be implemented in the kitchen, classroom, future careers and daily life.
Workshop for Professionals (10-12 August 2019) The workshop designed for professionals fulfills many purposes. It gives local professionals, teachers and aspiring professionals the opportunity to exchange food knowledge and culture with the instructors, who are residents of Hawaii. They learned new methods and were inspired to incorporate local produces into non-local style dishes making them innovative yet unique to Taitung.
Instructors Daniel and Alice kept the workshop simple, using a selection of few everyday ingredients. They transformed each ingredient into a diversity of dishes, and demonstrated making the most out of each ingredient. They showed creative solutions to reducing food waste, sharing examples each day inventing new dishes from leftovers, or making stock and stews from food scraps which were new practices to participants. Participants were divided into smaller groups. Each group was a make-up of culinary professionals/teachers and students. The professionals and teachers were able to share knowledge and experience with each other, and were able to mentor and coach students while students practiced communication and relationship building skills. Culinary students who once learned to cook by textbook for the purpose of passing exams were able to witness and experience a different and more creative way of learning achieving the same learning goal.
Professionals were inspired by new methods of cooking and felt eager to adopt the practice into their own kitchens. One participant was especially heartened by Instructor Daniel’s openness to share techniques and ideas with peers; it is an inspiring attitude he felt encouraged to follow and a culture he hopes to implement in his own professional environment as a leader.
Workshop for Junyi School of Innovation Students (13-16 August 2019) The aim of the workshop was for Junyi teachers and boarding students in senior high to learn basic foundations of cooking and baking to incorporate into the daily boarding life. Participants were separated into small groups, each group pairing teachers with students which gave them the opportunity to co-learn and experience real-life scenarios.
Students who completed tasks early, were encouraged to help peers. They were also encouraged to share produces when needed. Instructor Daniel wishes for students to not only gain basic cooking skills but for them to connect the values of working hard, learning and sharing into their daily life. When workshop intern and interpreter encountered difficulty in the beginning of the workshop, Instructor Daniel encourages that nobody is perfect on the first day, but with hard work comes results. Instructor Daniel expresses the challenges of being a chef, and how pursuing the field needs persistence and resilience. He shares that in any endeavor students aspire to, they don’t have to be the best, but they must always try their best and make the effort to exceed personal bests. He says, “In everything I do, I always give 100%,” and hopes it is a core attitude the students will take-away from the workshop. He believes the goal of the workshop is not to nurture future chefs, but rather a basic life skill, learning to overcome challenges, and to approach unfamiliar tasks positively. Each participant concluded the workshop with positive takeaways.
Daniel Swift Daniel Swift has worked in the restaurant business since 1985 when he started washing dishes in high school. He is a graduate of Boise State University’s Culinary Arts Program (1991) and Johnson and Wales University’s Baking and Pastry Arts program (1994) in Providence, Rhode Island. He spent the next 8 years traveling and working as a chef for the top hotel companies such as the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua, Kahala Mandarin Oriental, The Westin Seattle and the Hilton Hawaiian Village. He began teaching in 2002 and earned his Master Degree from the University of Hawaii at Mānoa in 2005. He has taught Culinary, Baking and Pastry and Hospitality courses for the last 16 years at 5 different colleges and universities, including the Collins College of Hospitality Management, Chaffey College, the William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration in Las Vegas and currently is a professor of food and beverage at the Culinary Institute of the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. Daniel earned his doctorate in Organizational Leadership from the University of Laverne in California in 2017. He is a Certified Master Baker through the Retail Bakers of America and hold certifications with the American Culinary Federation as a Certified Executive Chef, Certified Executive Pastry Chef, and Certified Culinary Administrator.
Alice Swift Alice Swift has over 15 years of hospitality, food and beverage experience through various industries. She received her Bachelor of Science degree from the Collins College of Hospitality Management program at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where she developed her passion for wine education. She worked in various restaurants both in the front and back of house and obtained several sommelier certifications through the course of her studies (SWE Certified Wine Specialist, WSET Level 3, CMS Level 1). Concurrently, she also developed her culinary and baking skills as a co-owner of Pomona Baking Company, where she specialized in custom cakes. After moving to Las Vegas in 2011, Alice began teaching for the University of Las Vegas, Nevada (UNLV) in beverage and hospitality courses, and worked as an instructional designer for UNLV while she obtained her Master Degree in Instructional Design and Technology from California State University, Fullerton. This combination of fields led to her success with MGM Resorts International as a Learning Design Manager leading a team of multimedia designers to create online learning and development initiatives for the hospitality company of 80,000+ employees. In 2016, Alice earned her Ph.D. in Hospitality Administration from the William F. Harrah College of Hospitality at UNLV, and currently works as a Senior Instructional Designer for Kamehameha Schools, the largest private non-profit K-12 organization in the United States which caters to indigenous Native Hawaiian people. She continues to stay in the hospitality industry teaching online hospitality courses for UNLV, while continuing her monthly WineTalk column as a journalist for the Las Vegas Food & Beverage Professional magazine. Alice and Daniel Swift now operate Swift Hospitality Consulting, LLC, a company dedicated to helping promote food and beverage education. They are excited to share their passion and experience in hospitality with students and professionals at home and abroad.