About the Contributors
Stephanie Bourgeois Managing Editor
Stephanie Bourgeois grew up loving food and cooking in Alberta, Canada. After completing a degree in psychology at McGill University in 2007, Stephanie followed her love of food to New York City and enrolled in pastry school. She has worked for several magazines including, Food Arts, Wine Access and Up! She has also worked for the James Beard Foundation and Food52. Recently, she completed a Masters in Food Studies at NYU.
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Nicole Kaplan Sweet Treats Columnist
Nicole Kaplan is one of ICE’s dedicated and professional Chef Instructors. During her nearly seven years as executive pastry chef of Eleven Madison Park, Kaplan created desserts that were in perfect sync with the restaurant’s French- influenced New American cuisine. In 2004 and 2006, Pastry Art & Design selected Nicole Kaplan as one of the Ten Best Pastry Chefs in America for the talent with which she makes her desserts. She began her career at Sign of the Dove, followed by Osteria del Circo, where she began as a pastry sous chef the day after graduating from ICE. She has developed her skills with talents such as Pierre Hermé, Alain Ducasse, Patrice Caillot and Frédéric Bau. Before joining ICE’s faculty, she served as executive pastry chef of the celebrated Del Posto (the crown jewel of the Bastianich/Batali restaurant group) and the Plaza Hotel.
James Briscione Taste Test Columnist
James Briscione currently works as a Chef Instructor at ICE. He grew up with the foods of the South. Working with James Beard Award winner Frank Stitt in Birmingham, AL, he learned to create refined Southern cuisine by selecting only the freshest local ingredients. After three years as Chef de Cuisine at Stitt’s famed Highlands Bar and Grill, a move to New York City and Daniel came next. Working in the private dining room, James learned to produce food to strict four-star standards for some the restaurant’s biggest clients. James appeared on the first season of Food Network’s Chopped and walked away the champion. He returned to the Chopped Champions Tournament and became the show’s first ever two-time champion. He has also been featured in cooking segments for ABC News Now, delish.com, Condé Nast and Martha Stewart Radio on Sirius. His first cookbook with his wife, Brooke Parkhurst, Just Married & Cooking (Scribner) was released in May 2011.
Christina Ha Life as a Culinary Management Student Columnist
In 2009, Christina Ha enrolled in the Introduction to Baking class at ICE. Ten weeks into the 12 week program, she decided to sneak away to Paris for a week to learn about macarons at Atelier Pierre Herme. She came back determined to become a pastry professional. With the help of scholarships from the James Beard Foundation and Les Dames D’Escoffier, she completed ICE Pastry & Baking Arts program in 2010. She is a co-founder of Macaron Parlour and currently a pastry cook at Locanda Verde. Christina received her bachelor’s degree from Barnard College for economics and psychology and an AAS from the Fashion Institute of Technology for advertising and marketing communications. She has decided to combine her love for pastries and her business-oriented background and enroll in the Culinary Management program. Christina spends all of her spare time either baking or eating and can’t imagine a life more fulfilling.
Maureen Drum-Fagin Contributor
Maureen Drum-Fagin has spent the past nine years at ICE advising students and alumni about careers in the food industry. She sits on the Board for the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Wine and Food, and counts the International Association of Culinary Professionals, New York Women’s Culinary Alliance, and Women Chefs and Restaurateurs among her active affiliations. She is also a founding Board Member of Culintro Culinary Trade Organization. Maureen holds a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, with a concentration in Nutritional Sciences, as well as a Culinary Arts Diploma from The Institute of Culinary Education. She is also a cookbook copyeditor, drawing upon years of prior editorial experience with such companies as St. Martin’s Press, Smithmark Publishing and HarperCollins.
Andrea Tutunjian Contributor
Andrea Tutunjian has been a Chef Instructor and Director of the Pastry & Baking Arts Career Program at ICE for the past fifteen years. She previously held pastry positions at Le Cirque and the Rainbow Room. She received a Blue Ribbon Cooking School Diploma from ICE, back when it was known as Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School and also holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics management from LeMoyne College. During her tenure at ICE, Andrea has worked closely with Nick Malgieri on several of his cookbooks, from research and manuscript preparation to recipe testing and food styling. Andrea’s responsibilities at ICE include supervising 12 instructors, as well as the ongoing development and implementation of the pastry and baking arts professional curriculum. This entails creating, writing and testing recipes, as well as designing and organizing lesson plans for both instructors and students. Most recently Andrea worked with one of ICE’s Chef Instructors, Simon Cass, to develop and completely revise the professional bread curriculum.
Rick Smilow Contributor
Rick Smilow is the president of ICE. He acquired the now 35-year-old school from Peter Kump in 1995. During his tenure, the school has quadrupled its program offerings, gained accreditation, changed its name and physically relocated and expanded within New York City. In 2008, ICE won the IACP’s national Award of Excellence for schools. Prior to ICE, Mr. Smilow was an entrepreneur in the food business and held marketing positions at Nabisco Brands. Mr. Smilow holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Emory University and an M.B.A. in marketing from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Mr. Smilow is a director of C-CAP (Careers Through Culinary Arts Programs), City Harvest and is on the advisory board of Action Against Hunger. He is also a member of Young Presidents’ Organization and in 2007 was a finalist for the IACP’s Award of Excellence for entrepreneurs. In 2010, he authored his first book, Culinary Careers.
Kelly Lombardi Contributor
Kelly Lombardi first came to ICE to combine her life-long passion for food with her years of professional experience in marketing. As ICE’s Director of Marketing, she has been with the school for nearly four years and after seeing so many happy students walking the halls, Kelly enrolled in ICE’s Culinary Arts program in 2008. Kelly received her bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University with a double-major in Marketing and International Business. When not at work, Kelly loves to travel locally and abroad in search of new culinary experiences to share on her blog, Tender Is the Bite.
Hillery Wheeler Recreational Class Contributor
Hillery Wheeler spent her formative years traveling the world, and now she’s traveling the kitchens at ICE! As a child of a military family with its fair share of culinary curiosity, Hillery describes herself as an “accidental foodie” who grew up loving and appreciating good food and drink and is now set on learning how to make it herself. After graduating from the University of Missouri with a degree in Mass and Political Communication, Hillery returned to her family roots in New York with a well-stocked kitchen and absolutely no furniture – priorities were in order! Hillery currently works in the admissions department at The Institute of Culinary Education and looks forward to providing an inside look as the Recreational Class Contributor on DICED.
Deanna Silva Life as a Pastry Student Columnist
Deanna Silva has spent the past two years meeting chefs, advising students and most importantly, eating good food, in her role as a career services advisor at ICE. Born and raised in Jersey City, NJ, Deanna received a degree in Human Services & Counseling and Spanish at the University of Scranton. Deanna has worked in a number of education and hospitality positions in a variety of settings, including hospitals, internet companies, universities and restaurants. Her other interests include traveling, writing and of course, dining. Often joking that she is the only person who works at ICE that doesn’t cook, Deanna is thrilled about becoming a student in ICE’s professional Pastry & Baking Arts program and sharing her experience on DICED.
Melanie Moss Contributor
Melanie Moss grew up in a food-obsessed family in New York. While pursuing her degree in English literature and French at Northwestern University, Melanie took her passion for cuisine abroad to apprentice with a Parisian chef as his assistant and translator for recreational classes. Melanie has a professional background in book publishing and has written for Time Out Chicago, as well as her food blog, Golden Madeleine. It was without hesitation that Melanie decided to enroll in the Culinary Arts program at the Institute of Culinary Education, where she is currently enjoying every minute of her classes.
Kelly Senyei Founder
Kelly Senyei was the founder of DICED and graduated in April 2010 from ICE’s Culinary Arts Career Program. Her path to creating DICED was a well-balanced mix of passion, determination, timing and luck. Already enrolled to begin as a student at ICE, Kelly pitched the concepts of blogging and social media to ICE management and soon learned of a vacant Public Relations post. ICE management was impressed with Kelly and excited about the opportunity to begin a dialogue with its millions of constituents. They offered Kelly the role and asked her to grow with it. Two months later she launched DICED and became ICE’s first ever Public Relations & Social Media Associate. She chronicled her 6-month experience at ICE in the Life as a Culinary Student column on DICED. Forever a food and media fanatic, she officially began her career in food journalism with the launch of her award-winning food blog, JustaTaste.com. She has previously written for FoodNetwork.com, Recipe Zaar, Food2 and Living.com. Her original recipes and photographs have appeared online and on-air at NBC. Kelly received her bachelor’s degree in communication and business from Northwestern University and her master’s degree in journalism from The Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. Kelly completed her externship in the Food Network Kitchens and now works as the Content Producer of Gourmet Live.
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Comments (9)
I only wanted to say thank you! for all the great info found on your blog, even helped me with my work recently
keep it up!
[...] About the Contributors [...]
Your blog is really impressive and motivate for culinary students. I appreciate your efforts for bring this blog and share your thoughts with us.
Career in culinary is getting attention nowadays. Students are looking forward to this industry for better career prospects.
Hi,
Can you please publish the recipe for the almond caked which were served in yesterday’s open house (3/2/10 )
Please ?
Thank you
Nice, i like your articles a lot and will be excited to read more
I attended Chef Gerri Sarnataro’s class last Friday evening entitled Recipes from Cucina della Terra, her cooking school in Umbria.
Here is a gallery of some class photos I took:
https://www.me.com/gallery/#100212
I’m so glad to see that ICE has an awesome blog. Cakeb0t happened thanks to my time at ICE!
<3 Binky
Very nice Blog! It is really inspiring
I like what you guys are up too. Such smart work and reporting! Carry on the excellent works guys I¡¦ve incorporated you guys to my blogroll. I think it’ll improve the value of my website