The Cooks Are Well-Seasoned Culinary Arts Program At Nic Feeds Dreams

If there is a Top 10 list of American Dreams, Anna Tian’s dream is surely on it.

“Someday, I want to have a restaurant,” the 25-year-old said as she arranged graceful red pepper garnishes. “I want to serve Hungarian and American food.”

Richard Schultz makes sure such dreams are heavily seasoned with reality. He’s the sole instructor in the North Idaho College Culinary Arts program, which expanded this year to meet the demand of students such as Tian.

“There’s a lot of difference between loving to cook and running a restaurant,” Schultz said. “The hardest part is when you get busy and the pressure is on. I’ve been through rushes where there was so much work to do, I almost cried.”

Schultz’s 15 students are put through their paces each Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. That’s when they serve breakfast and lunch in the Hedlund Building, at the southeast corner of campus.

Their restaurant is named Emery’s after Emery Hedlund, the legislator who fought for the money to build the vocational-technical building. The lunch menu features half a dozen entrees, all under $4.

For $3.25, for example, an appetite can be tamed with filet of cod, sauteed with a lemon cream sauce; French onion soup; freshly baked bread and a delicate pumpkin roll.

The goal isn’t to make money, but to give the students experience. They take turns at the various jobs such as baking, washing dishes, taking orders, planning menus.

This week, Andrew Hasseries cooked those cod filets. At one point, after ladling two sauces into the saute pan, he asked his teacher: “Rick, what am I supposed to look for?”

After giving three other instructions in the bustling kitchen, Schultz responded: “Add a little heavy cream. Reduce it a bit, Andrew.”

At one point, Schultz was cooking the fish himself.

“I help out,” he said. “I want them to learn, but I don’t want them to go ballistic on me.”

Hasseries tried to get into the 10-month culinary arts program last year, but was put on a waiting list. This fall, NIC expanded the number of slots from 10 to 15, allowing more people to enroll on a first-come, first-serve basis.

In the future, Schultz said, students may be chosen based on attitude and experience in a professional kitchen.

Dave Behrens, 19, has been around kitchens since he was a kid. His mother manages restaurants in Pennsylvania. He hopes his grades at NIC will be good enough that he can go on to a multi-year college culinary program.

The ultimate one, said Schultz, is offered by the Culinary Institute of America. It costs $100,000 for a four-year bachelor’s degree. Before investing that kind of money, Schultz tells students, it’s worth spending $1,100 at NIC to see if the career is right for them.

College training isn’t critical to success, but it helps. Schultz learned “in the school of hard knocks.” He doesn’t recommend it.

He began as a waiter at the Chef in the Forest restaurant at Hauser Lake. When the owner complained that he never got time off, Schultz volunteered to learn how to cook.

He eventually opened his own restaurant in Ocean Shores, Wash., then managed a gourmet Italian restaurant in downtown Chicago.

Schultz escaped the big city and landed back in Coeur d’Alene just as NIC was advertising for someone to run its new culinary arts program. It started out in 1990, he said, in a cubbyhole in the student union building.

Now, the students work in a big, modern kitchen on their restaurant days. On Monday and Friday, they labor in a classroom. They work from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., even longer if they’re catering a special meal or the baking simply isn’t done.

“The program has offered much more than I expected,” Lorraine McBryde said as she sliced French bread. “Rick is a great instructor. He knows his stuff, he knows his quality. He really pushes us.”

At 46, McBryde is the oldest of this year’s students. With her youngest child in college, she’s finally pursuing her dream. Which is …

“To open up a little bakery and restaurant in Rathdrum, where I live.”

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MEMO: The public is encouraged to eat at Emery’s, but reservations are suggested. Call 769-3433.