Laying the Foundation

Laying the Foundation

The Fort Worth Food + Wine Festival hopes to change the local restaurant scene through largesse.

BY ERIC GRIFFEY

The lab on the first floor of Trimble Tech High School on the Near Southside doesn’t look like your typical venue for a science class. The front of the room houses the traditional neat rows of student desks, an overhead projector, and cluttered instructional classroom posters and signs taped to the concrete walls, including, “Speak in complete sentences,” but it’s the back of the expansive bunker-esque space that stands out.

Amid an arrangement of stainless-steel tables, ovens, sinks, vent hoods, kitchen cabinets, and an industrial mixer, 10 jovial students donned in white jackets recently stood around their upbeat instructor, Heather Kurima, who was also wearing her chef coat. The chef-turned-high-school-teacher was talking the kids through the finer points of tossing dough as part of her lecture on the science of pizza.

Bruton: “The Fort Worth Food + Wine Festival is an inspiration.”

Photo by Jeff Prince

“You can use a rolling pin and cheat,” she taunted, “or you can learn to stretch the dough by hand. I just don’t want to see a bunch of pizza dough on the ceiling.”

Similar scenes repeat around Fort Worth schools every day, as culinary arts classes are becoming more widespread throughout the region. As the various cooking programs expand, local chefs and professionals in the restaurants business have stepped in and taken on roles as mentors and benefactors –– none more so than the leadership and volunteers of the Fort Worth Food + Wine Festival’s charitable arm.

Over the last few years, money raised by the four-day festival, whose seven signature events highlight some of the best food, drinks, and culinary artisans in the city, has been used to fund grants that have paid for kitchen supplies at schools that meet certain criteria and college tuition for select kids. Students also participate in the festival, mostly by lending a helping hand and learning under established chefs. Every year, some students also take over a whole table at events and serve the food they created.

Natasha Bruton, Trimble Tech’s director of culinary arts, estimated that her school has received around $10,000 in grant money and more than $25,000 toward individual student scholarships from the festival.

Area high school students prepare to volunteer at last year’s festival.

Photo by Brian Hutson, courtesy of Fort Worth Food + Wine Festival

“We’ve always had a relationship with the Fort Worth Food + Wine Festival,” she said. “They just do good things for people. As a teacher, I try to inspire these kids to do better –– to want more. Every year, my students have received scholarships. To me, the Fort Worth Food + Wine Festival is an inspiration. They inspire kids to do big things.”

The festival’s nonprofit, Fort Worth Food + Wine Foundation, has raised more than $150,000 for grants and scholarships to date. Julie Eastman, the executive director of the festival, said one of the goals of the grant and scholarship money is to create a pipeline of talent into the local restaurant scene.

“If we can develop a great foundation of amazing ‘future staff members’ for all of our culinary businesses in Fort Worth for the next decade, then the festival [will have been] a great success in that area,” she said. “So many students have a passion for the culinary arts, and we want to cultivate that passion and allow it to grow into the next generation of restaurants, executive chefs, and general managers.”

The festival’s charitable mission made headlines four years ago when the Fort Worth restaurant community rallied behind a Trimble Tech student.

In 2015, Bruton found out Cameron Sanders had been homeless until he moved in with friends. He worked jobs at Pappadeaux and the Magnolia Cheese Company to pay his $50 weekly rent while attending school. Sanders and other students from Trimble Tech volunteered at that year’s festival, and that ended up changing his life.

Kurima: “I just don’t want to see a bunch of dough on the ceiling.”

Photo by Jeff Prince

Later that year, Sanders was accepted into the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in New York City, and festival organizers doled out a $9,000 scholarship to help pay his way.

“At the end of the year, [the nonprofit’s leaders] called [Sanders] up to Reata for an interview,” Bruton said. “They called him the next day and told him they were giving him a scholarship and sending him to CIA.”

Sanders completed his two-year degree at CIA and now works in Boston.

To be eligible for a scholarship and $5,000 grant, students and schools must participate in the Career Culinary Conference, a daylong symposium hosted by festival organizers, and volunteer at the festival –– something Amber Welborn says her students at Benbrook High School are excited about every year.

“Three years ago, I got an email asking if we’d be interested in participating,” she said. “They were looking for students to come and assist in different booths. And I said, ‘Are you kidding? Yes, please!’ That’s much more experience and exposure than we’d ever get at school.

“The students have so enjoyed it,” she continued. “When they reflect back on that experience, it’s one of their favorite things.”

Granbury High School students prepare passed appetizers for last year’s festival.

Photo by Jeff Prince

Benbrook High School received a $5,000 grant last year, which she said was spent on basic kitchen supplies, such as hotel pans, thermometers, and ice paddles.

Lindsey Lawing, the festival’s school programs coordinator, said the festival/nonprofit usually has enough money to award every school that meets the criteria and applies for the $5,000 classroom grants. The schools then decide what to spend it on. This year, she said, five schools qualify for the cash award.

“Our goal is to include a lot more schools and transform the conference into the go-to event for area schools,” she said. “I know a lot of the schools that participate have UIL [University Interscholastic League] competitions, so we’re trying to offer more ways to participate.”

This year, she said, two schools will be hosting tables –– the Keller Center for Advanced Learning and Granbury High School. The foundation pays back the schools for any out-of-pocket costs.

Another Trimble Tech grad, Cristina Tapia, said her experience at the festival was formative. Working with the top industry professionals in town, she added, inspired her to pursue a career in the kitchen. Two years ago, she was awarded a $5,000 scholarship and now attends the University of Houston’s Conrad N. Hilton’s College of Hotel and Restaurant Management.

Students at Trimble Tech learn the science behind making pizza as they top their own pies.

Photo by Jeff Prince

Festival and foundation organizers, she said, “are very motivated. They really care for the students. They really helped me out during a time I needed the support. It’s something I will forever cherish.”

Tapia hopes to one day open an authentic Mexican restaurant in Fort Worth that emphasizes the native techniques.

“I want to bring out my culture and what my family taught me,” she said. “There’s a lot of Mexican restaurants [locally], but not a lot have that culture.”

A restaurant owned by a Fort Worth Food + Wine Foundation scholarship recipient is exactly what Eastman and the other festival producers had in mind when they began awarding money.

Going forward, she said, the festival will continue its slow and thoughtful growth.

“We have been extremely blessed over the last six years to be able to capture the tremendous growth in Fort Worth,” she said. “We really just want to continue to shine a spotlight on all of the talented people and their businesses.”

Zest817.com