Dining With Class

Class was over, and the students tossed their books aside. Then they began the magical process of transforming a plain yellow pumpkin into a golden carriage.

They rearranged the desks and threw pine green tablecloths over them. They added stiffly starched white napkins. And they placed elaborate ice sculptures on a long linen-covered table.

For the night, the usually nondescript classroom at Oxnard College would become a fancy eatery and the doors would open to the public. The stern, scholarly atmosphere would become festive. And rather than poring over books, students would be pouring cups of coffee.

Gourmet culinary students would prepare and serve the meals, which go for about $10 a plate.

When Frank Haywood says some of the students believe they should be paid for what they do in class, he is not joking.

The aspiring chefs who are taking the gourmet dining course work eight-hour shifts preparing exquisite meals of wilted spinach salads with roasted peppers, gravlax sourdough baguettes, mushrooms a la grecque and mint juleps.

“No, we’re not paying them, but students have it made,” said Haywood, director of the hotel and restaurant management department. “They pay no lab fee, and look at all the hands-on experience they get.”

Haywood stood inside the bustling college kitchen, where students wearing milky-white chefs uniforms and serious looks were noisily preparing for a banquet. The focus was not only on food.

Some students were chipping away at blocks of ice, creating a swan and a basket to use as banquet-table centerpieces. Others were carving delicate roses out of rutabagas and leeks, which they dipped in pink dye and placed in vases.

Jennifer Osborne, 19, sprinkled finely chopped dill into a vat of butter.

“I’ve found what I want to do with my life,” said Osborne, a Ventura resident who has a job making truffles and is studying to become a pastry chef.

She stirred the mixture and spooned it into a cone-shaped bag usually used to decorate cakes.

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She squeezed the bag, creating rows of tiny rosettes across a cookie sheet. The dill-butter rosettes would be frozen and served with dinner rolls that night.

The art of fine dining is in the details, said instructor Cliff Chapman.

In discussing the program, he bristled at the phrase “cooking course.”

“It’s more than just than a cooking class, don’t you think?” Chapman asked as he meandered around answering students’ questions, offering advice and tasting their creations.

Indeed, students learn to follow sanitation laws, train restaurant employees and run food businesses. In addition to transforming the classroom into a gourmet restaurant, they prepare and serve lunches and dinners at the college cafeteria.

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The program started at Moorpark College on a smaller scale many years ago and transferred to Oxnard College full time in 1985. Haywood, who came from a similar program at Santa Barbara City College, has been with the department since its inception.

By 1987, culinary students had taken over nearly all of the college cafeteria food preparations. By 1990--as a result of reduced labor costs and an extended menu--the cafeteria began making money for the first time in years, Haywood said.

Like many of the students, Evelyn Hauke, 33, of Port Hueneme has aspirations of owning her own restaurant. In the meantime, she works the graveyard shift as a cook at a Denny’s in Ventura and takes culinary classes during the day.

Other students are taking the courses to become chefs, sous-chefs, bakers and caterers--or, like Roman Sierra, because they were hungry for more knowledge about the food industry.

Sierra’s family owns Pilar’s Cafe in Oxnard.

“I want to learn everything there is about the restaurant business,” Sierra said, scooping honeydew balls for a fruit torte. “I want to take what my mother did and bring it to the next level.”