September + October 2019 ADIRONDACK LIFE 15
maple cake and ice cream. His biggest
challenge? “Finding my plating style,” he
says. (With a smear of maple cream con-
necting a cube of cake to a dollop of ice
cream nested on walnuts, it looks like
he nailed it.)
Students also take their turns at
the vegetable and protein stations, or
expediting orders through the entire
process—and everybody does a hitch
at the sink. “You have to know how to
have empathy for the dishwashers,” says
associate professor Kevin McCarthy,
who supervises the kitchen.
McCarthy, a graduate of the Culinary
Institute of America, started at Paul
Smith’s in 2009 after a decade as execu-
tive chef at The Point on Upper Saranac
Lake and a couple of years at the Lake
Placid Lodge. He made the career change
to spend more time with his wife and
15-, 11- and seven-year-old sons, but
he says working with young adults has
its own rewards, allowing him to teach
the next generation “the realities of the
business, the good and the bad.”
Part of the job is guiding students to
a deeper relationship with food. McCar-
thy’s syllabus includes field trips to
farms, tracking ingredients from their
roots and exploring the symbiotic rela-
tionships between livestock and crops.
“We see the light go on,” he says. “‘Wow,
a piece of chicken isn’t just a piece of
chicken, a carrot isn’t just a carrot.’”
At Juniper Hill Farm, in Wadhams,
owner Adam Hainer explains the hur-
dles in volved in organic certification
while wooing his audience with sam-
ples. At Asgaard Farm & Dairy, in Au
Sable Forks, students sometimes pitch
in during cheese making. “It’s import-
ant that kids see how much depth there
is in a piece of cheese,” says McCarthy.
And they might expand their palates
while they’re at it—sophomore Jeanel-
iz Mendez didn’t think she liked goat
cheese, but the award-winning flavors
at Asgaard changed her mind.
When the chefs-in-training get back
into the kitchen, they’re encouraged to
ma ke ever y t h i ng f rom sc r atch. “ We have
yet to open a single can,” says 19-year-
old Connor Caratozzolo. “There’s so
much processed food [in this country],”
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