Chef Demonstrates Sustainable Cooking

Fall is the season for apples, cider, butternut squash, and pumpkins. Last Thursday in the Heights Room, Michael Kann, associate director of food and beverage, tantalized students' taste buds by demonstrating how to combine all of these to make a delicious apple and butternut autumn bisque.

Sponsored by the Undergraduate Government of Boston College (UGBC), this sustainable cooking demonstration is one of five events in the Feed Your Mind series, an attempt to inform students on how they can be more sustainable through the foods they cook and consume.

"Sustainability is UGBC's mission. We want to teach students how to make meals out of the groceries they buy," Nicole Borruso, co-director of dining services in the UGBC cabinet and A&S '11, said.

Three white, cloth-draped tables sat in front of a demonstration table. Alongside the wall, another table held an array of individual pizzas from Addie's, chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies, mouth-watering apples, and a decadent carrot cake.

Whether students came to this event because they have kitchens or are interested in healthy eating habits, they were afforded a demonstration on a healthy, seasonal main dish.

Dressed in his professional chef whites, Kann stepped up to the demonstration table and said, "My passion has always been with food."

Kann had a personable rapport with the audience and sprinkled his demonstration with jokes.

Before Kann started cooking, he showed students how to sharpen a knife at a five-degree angle, cut at the last moment of a curve, and peel before taking seeds out. He then sharpened his knives and was ready to go. Kann started slicing and dicing the ingredients in front of him. Onions, leek, butternut squash, carrots, ginger gold apples, apple cider, potatoes, salt and creamer were thrown in to the pot. Kann mixed them together to create a delicious aroma that permeated through the air, reminiscent of a home-cooked meal.

Kann brought already-made soup and poured it into individual pumpkin bowls for students to try for themselves. He stressed that presentation is key in cooking.

Before coming to BC, Kann worked at Four Seasons Hotels, was an instructor at the New England Culinary Institute, the director of undergraduate dining at Harvard, and oversaw all meal production for 27 airlines. January marks Kann's fifth year at BC.

Since joining the BC dining services team, Kahn has stepped up to assist the UGBC in accomplishing their goal of making BC students more sustainable by teaching them how to cook. "People don't cook when they're young, they become terrified of it when they're older and reach a road block," Kann said. "If I have knowledge, I want to share it."

Further demonstrations are scheduled for next month. November's demonstration will be on how to make 15-minute meals.