As Hawai‘i reopens to Life 2.0, we hear how the restaurant industry is one of the hardest hit, from Maui to Manhattan. But restaurateurs and chefs are doing everything they can to keep their dining rooms going. Locally the State’s $500 restaurant card—funded with $75 million from CARES Act money—is arriving in mailboxes of people who are receiving unemployment benefits. The goal is to feed people while injecting some cash into struggling restaurants. The culinary world has shown how nimble and scrappy it can be, with its immediate, creative responses to making good food in a new plane of reality.

And culinary programs are still doing their part to educate our next generations of cooking talents. The University of Hawai‘i Maui College’s award-winning Culinary Arts Program is three weeks into the current semester with a mix of online and in-person classes (with strict health and safety protocols in place, of course).

The Advanced Baking 1 students just wrapped up a unit on entremets—those complex, layered, mousse-baked little cakes that make people go “oooh!” at the end of their meals (yes, the name, reflecting the dish’s French origin as a between-courses break, no longer makes sense).

Culinary Arts Program Coordinator—and seasoned pastry chef—Teresa Shurilla is teaching the advanced class. “Entremets are the best way to teach the foundation skills that are required for almost any complex cake or patisseries,” she says. “Our students always love this project, especially when they see the beautiful results.”

UH Maui’s Culinary Arts Program classes are a progression from basic to advanced cookery, to everything you need to know to run a dining service, such as sanitation and safety and purchasing and cost controls. Spring 2021 semester classes will soon be available online here. Learn more about the UH Maui Culinary Arts Program.