Ringside seats

Guests go behind the scenes during Chef's Table gourmet meals at Flathead Valley Community College

Imagine dining amid the tantalizing aromas of baked brie with roasted garlic, Chilean sea bass spiced with fennel, simmering black truffle sauce, braised Belgian endive and white truffle oil polenta.

In a gleaming commercial kitchen, a team of 10 chefs prepares and serves each course, building to a crescendo of crepes suzette with homemade ice cream with chocolate-dipped strawberries and cookies.

As your host, the former head of the famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel's food operations - who has cooked for four presidents and six Commissioner's Super Bowl parties - provides food commentary and tips as his interns cater to your every dining whim.

Each Friday evening, Culinary Arts students and instructor Chef Howard Karp lead guests through a new gastronomic adventure at Flathead Valley Community College's Chef's Table.

"I would put this kitchen against the best in the valley," Karp said with a smile. "We have a lot of repeat customers."

Since the inaugural dinner on Jan. 23, the Chef's Table, completed in a state-of-the-art commercial kitchen in the college's new Arts and Technology Building, has added more reservations and chairs each week.

"We've been gracefully growing every single week," Karp said. "Our goal is to get up to 40 people. We're in the high 20s now."

For $38, guests experience a three-course gourmet meal served over about two and a half hours in the middle of the cooking action. It's a concept with roots in medieval Europe.

Karp said royalty often entertained intimate groups of friends in the kitchen and guests would watch and learn from the chef as they savor the feast. He said the idea has caught on from New York to San Francisco.

"A lot of well-known operations have chef's tables," Karp said. "They are very popular and you pay a premium price. With wine, it could be $350."

The Culinary Arts Department at the college initiated these meals as a vehicle for the first half of the 300 internship hours required to complete the two-year program.

Karp brought the idea with him when he moved here from the San Francisco area then joined Chef Hillary Ginepra in the Culinary Arts program last fall.

"We thought it would be great for students to do an internship on property," he said. "They have the opportunity to do a very, very nice meal in front of guests and see the reaction, the smiles on their faces."

The campus experience provides a gentle initiation into the rigors of a commercial kitchen with the same roles and performance demands. Karp said it sets them up for success in their second-year 150 hours of interning in private operations.

Students spend Monday through Thursday studying with Karp and learning their new menu for the Friday evening Chef's Table.

"On Thursday, I do a live demonstration," he said.

Karp described his menus and cooking methods as modern French with a classic foundation brought into today's lighter style of eating. He has 47 years of culinary experience, including three years of training at five-star restaurants in Switzerland.

The culinary students watch the chef's techniques and sample each dish to learn each note of flavor and nuance of texture. Dinner includes an array of appetizers, an intermezzo of sorbet to cleanse the palate, the main course and dessert.

As a special treat, the chef adds an "amuse bouche" surprise gift to the menu, described as just a bite to awaken the taste buds. For the Feb. 27 meal, the amuse bouche was a sip of tangy mushroom soup accompanied by a cheese straw.

When Friday arrives, the students spread their wings, organizing and preparing the Chef's Table menu using their own resources to solve problems.

"I'll troubleshoot but stay out of the way," Karp said. "I want them to go through all the trials and tribulations."

His 10 students work in teams of two. They rotate every three weeks during the 16 weeks of dinners through five stations of a traditional commercial kitchen -'service, appetizers/ hors d'oeuvres, main course, desserts and sous chef.

"Sous chef means under the chef," Karp said. "They're my managers."

On Feb. 27, partners Erica Cantu and Megan Secrest drew the sous chef station. Cantu, a single mother of three, seemed remarkably calm amid the pre-dinner bustle of the kitchen. It was her third and final week in the supervisory spot.

"We do the finances, the grocery shopping," she said. "We make sure everyone has what they need and that everyone is doing their job."

The first managerial headache that evening was an illness that left them short-handed. Cantu solved the problem by stepping into the appetizer preparation role with Janet Novotny, a retired college professor expanding her knowledge of culinary arts in her fifth decade.

As Novotny flipped tiny potato pancakes, she raved about the culinary program and her fellow students.

"I feel like I'm learning five-star cooking restaurant skills," she said.

At the opposite end of the age spectrum, Trevor Jones, 17, worked the service end. He filled glasses with ice as he explained that he was taking the courses as part of Running Start, a program that allows high school students dual credit for college courses.

"I'm a junior at Columbia Falls High School," he said. "I just always wanted to go to culinary school."

His teammate, Apollo Child, added his endorsement to the department. Child said he researched many schools before settling on Flathead Valley Community College's cooking degree as the best bargain for the curriculum.

"It's been a blast," he said. "This place is wonderful."

As guests began arriving, Child and Jones jumped into action, greeting and seating guests six to a table, carrying off coats and serving hors d'oeuvres. A tingle of electricity fills the air as Cantu scans the gathering crowd.

"It's show time," she said, stepping briskly away to consult fellow sous chef Secrest.

Karp began his duties as moderator by introducing the program then launching into the intricacies of baking brie. His tips continued through the Chilean sea bass baked in parchment to the last strawberry dipped in gourmet chocolate.

After each performance, the instructor holds a debriefing, reviewing the high points and missteps of the evening. He said he has witnessed his students' confidence and finesse increasing in the six weeks so far.

The students' aspirations run the gamut, from styling food for photo shoots to skiing and cooking at a resort in Vail to sailing the high seas as a chef on an ocean liner. One student dreams of starting a barbecue restaurant.

"This vocation is their ticket to live wherever they want to live," Karp said. "You have to just work hard and be dedicated."

He said that he and Ginepra field multiple inquiries from potential new students looking for a career in the kitchen. Karp said second-career students make up 35 to 40 percent of those in culinary school.

"Cooking is magic to a lot of people," he said. "It's still magic to me and I've been doing this for 47 years."

View each week's menus at the college Web site www.fvcc.edu/news-events/academic-news/chef-s-table and call 756-3814 for reservations. The dinners are scheduled through May 8.

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.