This week and next, I have the great pleasure of working on a Toastmasters Speechcraft program with a fellow Toastmaster and CIA Instructor. We are working with ten culinary students from all three CIA campuses on the CIA’s Diversity Council Speechcraft program.

My fellow Toastmaster shares, “The participants are students completing their Bachelor’s in different food-related fields at the Culinary. They are leaders of the Black Culinarian Society, the Latinx/Hispanic Club-Hermanos Sin Fronteras, and the Student Government Association. These students are very focused on their studies and are career-oriented individuals who are committed to creating a more just society. Some of them were or are currently my students. Their passion for their profession is inspiring!”

My fellow Toastmaster and I spent an additional half an hour on Zoom last night after the meeting catching up on the school and on past Instructors. Corky Clark and fish kitchen, as the group leader, Chef Clark made my life living hell in that class and then was one of my go-to guys if we ever needed anything. Chef Papini, one of my favorite chefs at the CIA, “You have to sing to your food, it’s like a butterfly, you have to treat it with love” he used to quote in class, plus a few stories of him throwing a temper tantrum at us for various things, including doing tourned potatoes wrong. To this day, I find those memories hysterically funny. I recall being petrified at the time, though. Stories from decades ago.

A story I didn’t get to share, but will in a future session, is the small kitchen in one of the dorms we could use to cook in (if you dared) that if you looked up, had hundreds, nay thousands of strands of dried spaghetti hanging from the ceiling. One of our Table Topics questions for the students on Monday was, “Have you ever thrown spaghetti against the wall to test for doneness? — If it sticks, it’s done (so they say) — If not what other such kitchen habits might you have?” I think I will have to tell the students about the kitchen because I’m sure they will get a kick.

What has impressed me most about this younger generation is the willingness to step up, not necessarily to be bold, but to be there in the first place, to look for something that can help improve themselves even more and improve their leadership skills.

In ending last night’s session, we discussed what we would be doing for the next session on Monday, which is to practice evaluations, ie, giving constructive, not critical, but constructive feedback on other people’s speeches. I mentioned and repeated it that I truly wished I had joined Toastmasters when I was a Chef because Toastmasters has taught me the value of being constructive rather than just critical and also ways to suggest improvement in whatever someone was doing. How valuable a skill set is that!

Instead of just screaming at a line cook and telling them what they did wrong, in hindsight, there are much better ways. When my fellow Toastmaster brought up how I made such a point of this at the end, I passed along that I was a screamer, a plate thrower, honestly not a very nice person. While I was a good chef and a decent manager, what I know now would have made me a much better manager and definitely, a much better person.

When I was coming up the ranks, that was the norm working for all of the European chefs, even Chef Labbe, who probably taught me more than any other chef I ever worked for,  he used to scream at my Sous Chef daily, “Jason, you stupid idiot!!!”. I am thankful he never treated me that way, but I worked for others where that was the norm; that WAS management. I am glad the industry is changing.

With having just finished our second meeting last night, I can echo with a resounding YES, that these students ARE leaders, and their passion for their profession is inspiring! These young professionals will be our leaders in the industry in a few years, and it’s such a pleasure being able to meet and talk to them.

With everything that is going on in our society today and the restaurant industry in such a scary place, it reassures me that new culinary professionals are coming into the industry and committed to making a difference. A difference not just in leadership but in promoting diversity and inclusion in the hospitality industry.