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Culinary Center adds Farm-to-Table Concentration

August 29/New York/PRNewswire -- The International Culinary Center, founded as The French Culinary Institute, announced the development of its inaugural and innovative farm-to-table concentration at its New York campus. The program will provide an opportunity for aspiring chefs to learn beyond the four walls of a kitchen, extending their culinary education into the fields and farms that produce the ingredients chefs rely on daily. The program will offer a unique, hands-on introduction to ecological agriculture and cuisine led by Dan Barber, executive chef and co-owner of Blue Hill New York and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, and one of the nation's most respected authorities on America's food supply and its future. To supplement the Classic Culinary Arts curriculum taught at The International Culinary Center, students will participate in a number of field trips during the six-month program, including an urban rooftop farm, a vineyard and a dairy farm. The program will culminate in a weeklong participative experience at Blue Hill and Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, N.Y. (45 minutes north of New York City).

"I am very excited to announce our farm-to-table program at The International Culinary Center in New York, the most innovative of its kind in America," said Dorothy Cann Hamilton, CEO and founder of The International Culinary Center. "By being one of the first culinary organizations to offer a concentration in ecology and cooking and placing sustainability at the heart of one our programs, we are not only preparing our students to be the very best chefs, we are also helping them preserve our culinary and farming heritage for future generations, while focusing on the practical knowledge, skills and tools needed, as our collaborators Blue Hill and Stone Barns Center affirm, to create a farm-powered kitchen."

The curriculum at the New York campus of The International Culinary Center is a collaborative program with Blue Hill and Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture (http://www.stonebarnscenter.org), one of the world's premier educational facilities on sustainable agriculture. Students will be introduced to the thoughts and practices that ally professional kitchens and ecological farms. The five-day portion of the curriculum, which will be taught at Blue Hill and Stone Barns Center at the end of the program, was developed by Chef Dan Barber with Stone Barns Center's farmers and educators and will demonstrate that through collaborations with farmers and educators, future chefs will begin to define their place behind the stove.

"The International Culinary Center is offering the most forward-thinking and best curriculum for culinary technique in the world and Stone Barns is offering the most up-to-date and best example of the future of great tasting food," said Dan Barber. "So together this curriculum offers the opportunity for a student to come and see the connection between farmer and chef to create a lifelong understanding of food, agriculture and delicious food for the future of cuisine."

Throughout the six-month program, students will embark on field trips to gain an understanding of urban agricultural connections, the terroir of the Long Island wine region, and the Hudson Valley agricultural community. The program will conclude with the intensive five-day program at Blue Hill and Stone Barns Center where students will learn, side-by-side with Dan, his kitchen team and Stone Barns Center farmers, how to create ecologically sound and farm-powered kitchens. They will be immersed in the innovative agricultural practices and farm experiments underway at Stone Barns, exploring how ingredients are shaped by breeding, diet, environment and soil, and come away with a better understanding of how good agriculture and ecological thinking are essential elements in the kitchen. Students will spend time in the classroom, fields, pastures and kitchens, gathering the practical knowledge, tools and skills needed to navigate today's food and farming labyrinth and recognize the potential of ingredients admirably grown and ably prepared –- principles that will present the foundation for a lifelong cuisine.

By educating and preparing aspiring chefs to work in and out of the kitchen, The International Culinary Center is bringing the "Center" to life. With the introduction of the farm-to-table concentration in New York and its collaboration with Blue Hill and Stone Barns Center's Farm-Powered Kitchen™ program, along with a sustainability program in California, planned symposiums, advanced career placement services, and several new collaborations including the upcoming Spanish curriculum (developed with renowned Chef José Andrés) and the articulation agreement with The New School in New York City, students have the opportunity to do more than just learn culinary techniques – they will learn how to put their skills into a larger, more dynamic framework.

The inaugural program in New York will start on December 18, 2012. For more information and to view an exclusive video with Dan Barber about the farm-to-table concentration, visit: http://www.internationalculinarycenter.com/courses/ny/farm_to_table.