Sous Chef Kyle Bedell makes pasta at the Green Ladle before a meal served on Aug. 25.
LEWISTON
Aspiring chefs have an opportunity to gain kitchen skills and experience thanks to a class offered by the Green Ladle.
The free adult work program is scheduled to begin on Sept. 28. Classes will run two days a week from 12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the Green Ladle, the culinary program for Lewiston Regional Technical Center.
Students who successfully complete the four-week class will receive ServSafe certification and learn basic food math, knife skills, cooking terms, sauté cooking, grill cooking, fry cooking, and baking and breakfast cookery. The Green Ladle’s Community Serving Community Food Truck Project is paying for the training, said Justine Burns, hospitality instructor at the Green Ladle.
The 30-hour program would normally cost between $600 and $700, Chef Dan Caron said. Caron is the director of the Green Ladle.
Planning for the class began after Caron, LRTC Director Rob Callahan and Green Ladle instructors met with members of the local restaurant and foodservice community on Aug. 16. The listening session featured many industry professionals talking about job openings and the need for training.
“We proud to offer this program to our community partners at a critical time like this,” Callahan said.
The class came about as a way to support the businesses that made food donations to the Green Ladle’s food program at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Burns said. The food program ran from March 2020 to May 2020.
“That’s our way of giving back to the community, partnering with our many food establishments,” she said.
For more information about the training program class, call the Green Ladle at 207-777-3199 or send an email to gladle@lewistonpublicschools.org