FUTURE OF CULINARY AND HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY BEGINS WITH FLORIDA HIGH SCHOOL COMPETITION

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Hoo has personality!

Hoo has personality! photo by Karen Kuzsel


If wishes were dreams that come true, being able to take culinary classes in high school would have been near the top of my list. As easy as it would be for me to be envious of the 193 students who participated in the competition segments of the Orange County (FL) Public School’s 4th Annual Hospitality and Culinary Competition, I am instead grateful to have once again witnessed the incredible creative and skilled talent they exhibited.
The December competition held annually at the Orlando World Center Marriott broadens the number of categories and participating schools and tech centers each year who offer culinary and/or hospitality training. Competition categories include: gourmet meals, desserts, knife skills, decorative centerpieces, edible centerpieces, and waiter’s relay. The hospitality portion, which I didn’t see, includes room inspection, case study analysis and project presentation.
This was my fourth year of judging. The first time I agreed to sample desserts in the early morning. As lovely as some of those sweets were that crossed my lips and went straight to my hips, I have happily judged the presentation of edible centerpieces for the past three years if for no other reason than to stand in awe of what these students craft in an hour.
penguin holiday

penguin holiday. photo by Karen Kuzsel


The Marriott prepared an amazing buffet in multiple stations for the judges and students and then awards are presented for the top places in each category. After smelling the aromas of gourmet meals and desserts being prepared tableside across the cavernous ballroom for a few hours, you can understand why there’s a mad rush for the buffet tables when given the OK signal.
Before I name the participating schools, tech centers and winners, I encourage anyone who would like to witness or impact future generations of hospitality and culinary stars to contact Patricia Breeding for next year’s team of volunteers. 407-317-3200,ext 2690 or  Patricia.breeding@ocps.net.
Don’t take just my word that this program is beneficial. Dave Robitaille, MS, MT (ASCP) and Program Specialist and Administrator for the Health Science Career and Technical Education at OCPS says, “The data overwhelmingly shows that students enrolled in CTE programs have a greater chance of completing high school and going to college than non-CTE students. So, CTE programs should not be looked at as an alternative for students not bound for college. On the contrary, if parents want their children to go to college, they should encourage them to enroll in a CTE program.”
 
The high schools who participated are: Colonial, Cypress Creek, Freedom, Wekiva, Winter Park, Oak Ridge, Gateway School, and Dr Phillips. Tech centers include  Mid Florida Tech, Westside Tech, and Orlando Tech. Sponsors included the Marriott, Keiser University, Johnson and Wales University, and the CFHLA.
The edible Christmas tree and friends. photo by Karen Kuzsel

The edible Christmas tree and friends. photo by Karen Kuzsel


 

 
Event
 		 School Home School Student Name
Non – Edible Centerpiece      
First place Cypress Creek HS   Riani Pokipala
Second place Dr Phillips HS   Cassidy Brown
Second place Dr Phillips HS   Sofia Fernandez
Second place Dr Phillips HS   Madison Fitch
Second place Dr Phillips HS   Tia Humphries
Edible Centerpiece      
First place Mid Florida Tech University HS Christine Hernandez
Second place Mid Florida Tech Edgewater HS Kristopher Davis
Third place Mid Florida Tech Cypress Creek Jamie Pena
Dessert High School      
First place Gateway School   Heriberto Lopez
First place Gateway School   Josue Cabrales
Second place Cypress Creek HS   Grant Baldinger
Second place Cypress Creek HS   Jessica Butler
Third place Winter Park HS   Daniella Sauri
Third place Winter Park HS   Raham Elsayed
DessertTech Center      
First place Westside Tech Wekiva HS Zakoya Hall
First place Westside Tech Evans HS Devante McDonald
Second place Westside Tech West Orange HS Kristi Caruana
Second place Westside Tech West Orange HS Lauren Harms
Gourmet Meal      
First place Winter Park HS   Melissa Morales
First place Winter Park HS   Antonio Cepero
First place Winter Park HS   Angelique Allison
Second place Winter Park HS   Joey Goldberg
Second place Winter Park HS   Laura Johnson
Second place Winter Park HS   Foley Flood
Third place Winter Park HS   Caleb Johnson
Third place Winter Park HS   Julie Phicien
Third place Winter Park HS   Amber Negron
Gourmet MealTech Center      
First place Westside Tech West Orange HS Angela Cippilone
First place Westside Tech West Orange HS Brandon Santiago
First place Westside Tech West Orange HS Abby Johnson
Second place Mid Florida Tech Cypress Creek Emmanuel Arboleda
Second place Mid Florida Tech University HS Raquel Amador
Second place Mid Florida Tech University HS Desiree Perez
Knife Skills      
First place Orlando Tech Winter Park HS Yafreicy Rodriguez
Second place Mid Florida Tech Dr Phillips HS Fransheska Whittington
Third place Westside Tech Wekiva HS Latasha Morris

 

Waiter’s Relay      
First place Freedom HS   Luis Alvarado
First place Freedom HS   Ysenia Palomino
First place Freedom HS   Lourdes Sanchez
Second place Colonial HS   Christine Ortiz Hernandez
Second place Colonial HS   Nathaniel Morales
Second place Colonial HS   Angel Dones
Third place Orlando Tech University HS Jessica Rivera
Third place Orlando Tech University HS Gabrielle Tursi
Third place Orlando Tech University HS Adrianna Colon

 

A cantelope tiki hut shields birds of a feather. photo by Karen Kuzsel

A cantelope tiki hut shields birds of a feather. photo by Karen Kuzsel


 
Hospitality Competition Winners
 

Event School Home School Student Name
Hospitality Competition      
First place – Overall Dr Phillips HS   Tia Humphries
First place Dr Phillips HS   Cassidy Brown
First place Dr Phillips HS   Madison Fitch
First place Dr Phillips HS   Sofia Fernandez
Second place- Overall Colonial HS   Yarissa Pena
Second place Colonial HS   Meagan Ojeda
Second place Colonial HS   Noe Hernandez
Second place Colonial HS   Lesly Lopez
Third place – Overall Mid Florida Tech Lake Nona HS Angie Grunskyte
Third place Mid Florida Tech West Orange HS Jadia Johnson
Third place Mid Florida Tech Cypress Creek HS Sasha Gatti
Third place Mid Florida Tech Wekiva HS Deja Miller

 
Karen Kuzsel is a writer-editor based in the Orlando area who specializes in the hospitality, entertainment, meetings & events industries.  She is a Contributing Editor-Writer for Prevue Magazine and is an active member of ISES and MPI. She writes about food & wine, spas, destinations, venues, meetings & events. A career journalist, Karen has owned magazines, written for newspapers, trade publications, radio and TV. As her alter-ego, Natasha, The Psychic Lady, she is a featured entertainer for corporate and social events. karenkuzsel@earthlink.net; www.ThePsychicLady.com. @karenkuzsel; @thepsychiclady.
 

Castle Hotel Dresses Up For Corporate Business

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Castle Hotel shimmers with royal attitude

Castle Hotel shimmers with royal attitude


There have been two stately Castles in Orlando. Both at one time have been pink, but unlike Cinderella’s Castle in Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom, the Castle Hotel on International Drive encourages overnight stays. In fact, after the Castle Hotel became the 9th Kessler Collection  boutique hotel to become part of the Marriott Autograph Collection on October 17, those overnights have gotten cozier.
Two of the 216 guestrooms have magically morphed into the three-treatment room Poseidon Spa and Garden Bistro. The remaining 214 threw off their mantle of yore and are now dressed in modern European furniture and soothing colors. The Castle didn’t shed its spires, turrets or twin rooftop balconies (some of the best viewing of area theme park fireworks and the perfect size for a reception for 120 max), but inside it now more closely resembles an upscale hunting lodge adorned in fine art work. Many pieces—such as the gorgeous chandelier hanging in the Palace Ballroom, came from Chairman and CEO Richard C. Kessler’s private collection.
Upon my visit to the grand re-launch of The Castle as the only Marriott Autograph Collection hotel on International Drive, I couldn’t stop drooling over the two rhinestone-encrusted black-and-white curved chairs enhancing the lobby. I have costumes (for my alter ego, Natasha, The Psychic Lady) that aren’t this bejeweled.
As with all 10 Kessler Collection properties in Florida, Georgia, Colorado, New Mexico and North Carolina, this one features local, regional, world-renowned and Kessler Signature artists. The $6.5 million, months-long renovation has repositioned The Castle from a luxury leisure property to one focused on attracting corporate business. There is now more than 9,000 sf in meeting and event space. The new Palace Ballroom can seat 180 in rounds. There is also the Read more

Orlando’s Food Scene Outlined in Ricky Ly’s Guide

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Food Lovers' Guide to Orlando  I am not sure if Orlando has ever had a food guide before Ricky Ly took on the task. I had heard about Ricky Ly before meeting him at two food events where we were both invited as food critics. Ly is a food blogger who can be found at @tastychomps or on FaceBook at tastychomps. His book is the Food Lovers’ Guide to Orlando: The Best Restaurants, Markets & Local Culinary Offerings.
Like Ly’s day job as an engineer, he tackled this food guide with meticulous organization and verve at getting the project done in a timely manner. Unfortunately, as with a guide of any kind, the listings start to become outdated by the time the guide is published. I noticed that with several of the restaurants mentioned here that are no longer in business.
Nonetheless, for someone looking for descriptions of a restaurant’s cuisine, a bit of background, and where it’s geographically located within the metro Orlando area (which is divided in food zones), this book is a winner. He articulates Orlando into downtown, central, north, west, east and south areas, as well as breaking down further into Universal/International Drive, Restaurant Row/Sand Lake Road, and Disney/Lake Buena Vista. The surprise is a separate listing for Winter Park and for food trucks. He told me he had visited all 300 restaurants listed here. I wish I could more plainly see the evidence of that. I like when he mentions dishes he personally favors at these restaurants. There just should have been more of that.  Instead, many of the restaurants are relegated to general information about what style of cuisine is prepared; information that could be found elsewhere.
I can see this guide as very useful for someone unfamiliar with Orlando restaurants, or someone just looking to try something new when out of their usual vicinity for dining out. Restaurants are delineated as to their price, type of attire (dressy or casual), and which are hid favorites. Specialty markets and stores are also categorized.
The book sells for $14.95 and can be found on Amazon or you can just contact Ly on his Facebook page or twitter name to get updates on where it can be purchased. Tell him you heard about the book in my blog.
Karen Kuzsel is a writer-editor based in the Orlando area who specializes in the hospitality, entertainment, meetings & events industries.  She is a Contributing Editor-Writer for Prevue Magazine and is an active member of ISES and MPI. She writes about food & wine, spas, destinations, venues, meetings & events. A career journalist, Karen has owned magazines, written for newspapers, trade publications, radio and TV. As her alter-ego, Natasha, The Psychic Lady, she is a featured entertainer for corporate and social events. karenkuzsel@earthlink.net; www.ThePsychicLady.com. @karenkuzsel; @thepsychiclady.
 
 
 

Food Lovers’ Guide to Orlando

THE PLAY WAS SHAKESPEARE’S “THING” but at WINTER PARK HIGH SCHOOL’S 9TH GRADE CENTER, IT’S ALL ABOUT SHAKESPEARE!

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Musicians played. Actors orated. The audience listens. Shakespeare Lives!

Musicians played. Actors orated. The audience listens. Shakespeare Lives!


When I was met at the door by a woman wearing a bedazzled plum Renaissance dress and circlet headpiece and the gym I was stepping into resembled market day in King Henry the VIII’s Court, I knew my expectations of Winter Park High School’s 9th Grade Center’s annual Shakespeare Festival had already been exceeded. What magic is this at a public school that so captures students’ imagination by thrusting them headlong into an immersive celebration of Shakespeare and the times in which he lived and created?
Weaving is a time-honored craft

Weaving is a time-honored craft


What better way to end the school year than by following up the required study of Romeo and Juliet than by having students attired in Elizabethan period costuming listening attentively to others who had to audition for the chance to orate prettily in sonorous tones?  What matter of mayhem hath the English department wrought that for 25 years, the annual Shakespeare Festival now crowds a gym with pennant-and-cloth draped booths in rich colors, artisans weaving on a loom or molding clay into a pot? There’s henna, caricaturists, calligraphers, and of course, majestic King Henry VII (Orlando actor Michael Marzella) robed in puffed cloak and furred crown presiding over the day’s events.
Natasha, The Psychic Lady reveals the mysteries in palms

Natasha, The Psychic Lady reveals the mysteries in palms


The band plays, someone gets locked up in the stockade, and pirate hatted men bow as they pass. There are fairies and queens, hand-servants dressing the tables laden with donated food.
The day begins in the wee hours of morn, but the organization begins anew for the next year. Each year the festival has grown in its offerings, thanks to the voluminous hours and money donated by students and parents. The Orlando Shakespeare Theater lends costumes. Teachers and administrative staff are costumed. Students are required to dress up and a collection of donated costumes are available for those in need. Each designated English class hour, that class attends the festival. They drink in the words and music of Shakespeare’s days. They revel in the pomp of the festivities.
I was hired as Natasha, The Psychic Lady to amuse, entertain and awe with my readings. Instead, I was the one who was entertained and awed by this splendid array of trappings and high spirits. My own booth bore signs hand-crafted by students. My gratitude goes to English teachers Sondra Dunlap and Stacy Julian, co-organizers of the event, for hiring me.
a student created my sign

a student created my sign


King Henry VIII says, "Huzzah"

King Henry VIII says, “Huzzah”


With so much negativity surrounding schools and the people we entrust with our most precious asset—our children, I couldn’t have been more inspired to witness the powerful impact of dedication, imagination, and community action that is still possible. I wish all the naysayers and budget-cutters could see first-hand what a difference the arts and engaging our young people’s minds can render.
Spinning a pot

Spinning a pot


Karen Kuzsel is a writer-editor based in the Orlando area who specializes in the hospitality, entertainment, meetings & events industries.  She is a Contributing Editor-Writer for Prevue Magazine and is an active member of ISES and MPI. She writes about food & wine, spas, destinations, venues, meetings & events. A career journalist, Karen has owned magazines, written for newspapers, trade publications, radio and TV. As her alter-ego, Natasha, The Psychic Lady, she is a featured entertainer for corporate and social events. karenkuzsel@earthlink.net; www.ThePsychicLady.com

HOLISTIC ASSAULT TO MY WALLET……THE COST OF TRUE HEALTH?

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Karen Kuzsel

Karen Kuzsel


The prognosis that one small area of my hip had crossed the border into osteoporosis has landed me in the sticker shock hell of questionable medicine and its cost. What price are you willing to pay for your health when it’s not a matter of life and death?I’m not a conspiracy theorist, so my recent experiences have made me question whether I am being treated this way because I have “women issues” or are these concerns generated from society’s reluctance to adhere to anything other than conventional Western medicine Read more

Hollywood The Band, A Tale of Sex, Drugs, And Rock And Roll

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hollywood the band coverThere’s a relic of an ironic joke that if you can remember the 60’s, you weren’t really there. The drugs were psychedelic and mind-expanding, the clothes worn as a defiant costume of flowers, paisleys and neon colors, and the arrogance of youth permeated the atmosphere like a clashing haze of ideas and ideals that rose upward and outward from a center core of music that can still be heard on any classic oldies station. The same could be said for the early 70s. Bands that etched their genius onto the landscape like The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Billy Joel, The Beach Boys, Grand Funk Railroad, Bob Seger, Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Simon & Garfinkle, The Buffalo Springfield, Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Santana, and Rare Earth were just some of the names that regularly vied for #1 on music play lists.
On none of those lists would you have found the band, Hollywood, a ragtag group of wanna-be rock ‘n roll stars who fought through their drug-induced sex haze long enough to let their creative musicality and stumbling managers guide them to their dream. You wouldn’t have found Hollywood listed because author Steven Jordan Brooks hadn’t yet imagined them on paper. But the band lives as surely as any fictional character representing a time, a place, and an era. “Hollywood The Band, A Tale of Sex, Drugs, And Rock And Roll” is a story of that band’s journey to secure a record deal. To get there, they had to survive the issues of the day: politics, music maneuverings, unlimited designer drugs, unbridled sex, homosexual awareness, the Viet Nam war, and racial tensions.
Brooks is a classically trained musician who transitioned from rock ‘n roll performer to management and production. Those years before he eventually morphed into an English and drama teacher became the research of his saga. He uses Hollywood, The Band, as the catalyst for telling a story of the 70’s, name dropping real bands and real-life situations into the fictional mix. While the story rings true and is likely a composite of characters Brooks lived and partied with, Read more

Film Festival Favors Global Themes & International Filmmakers

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Pui Chan, the documentary, won Best Documentary and Audience Favorite

Ron Howard and his Oscar nominated daughter, Bryce Dallas Howard, were at the Central Florida Film Festival (CENFLO) over Labor Day Weekend. OK, so maybe they weren’t physically there, but the movie he executive produced and she directed, When You Find Me, was not only there, but later won for Best Short Film.

Over the course of the Friday-Sunday festival, more than 80 features, shorts and documentaries from 14 states and eight foreign countries were shown to more than 2,000 film fans and movie industry folks. Held each Labor Day weekend for the past eight years, this was the third time it was sponsored by the City of Ocoee’s Community Redevelopment Agency (administered by my husband, Russ Wagner) and held at the newly-expanded West Orange Cinemas (WOC) in Ocoee.

MovieMaker Magazine recently named CENFLO in the “Top 25 Film Festivals worth Read more

Raising the Platform: SOCIAL MEDIA takes users to communication heights never before reached

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 This story was published in the December-January 2012 issue of Facility Manager magazine, an official publication of The International Association of Venue Managers, Inc.  It is reprinted with permission from Editor RV Baugus.
Face it. When it comes to using social media to get traffic through your doors, the concern now is how to use it more effectively than should you be using it at all. In a world where software changes more quickly than a teenager’s moods, the successful arena manager begins by pondering  these questions.
Which social media platforms work best for my audience?

  1. How do I build brand trust and loyalty?
  2. What incentives should I offer to engage and hold their attention?
  3. What’s next?

Deciding which social media platforms work
If Facebook and Twitter aren’t your new best friends, they should be.  “Facebook currently has 800 million active users, who in turn each have about 130 friends they actively share information with on a daily basis,” says Ryan Sheehy, Advertising & PR instructor for the Nicholson School of Communication for the University of Central Florida in Orlando.
What does that mean to you?
“Facebook allows you to directly connect with folks invested in your product.  Research shows that those connected to Facebook are more likely to purchase your product,” she noted during a session on Building A Social Media Strategy for Every Type of Facility at the 22nd annual Area Management Conference in Orlando.
For the 18,000-capacity Verizon Arena in North Little Rock, social media has been a gift for reaching an audience beyond their regional area. Social media collects personal information from users that “allowing us to customize what we’re sending,” says General Manager Michael Marion. “Email is being replaced by social media sites as the preferred Read more

Vibrate into the New Age!

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I love when certain words slide off my tongue as easily as dipping aforementioned tongue into a delectable Carvel soft chocolate ice cream cone on a hot summer day. Take synergistic, for example, a word that has been rolling around in my head for the past hour, just begging to be released. Synergy to me is when at least two diverse entities converge and the result is more powerful and wonderful than either part individually. Today my past and my present and my future all collided. When I was very young, I had a favorite uncle who was both a widely-respected newspaper editor and a prodigious national book reviewer. When I’d go to visit him, the walls were literally lined with books he’d reviewed. With each visit, he’d stimulate my thirst for knowledge with gifts of these treasures and encourage me to write about what I knew, what I saw, and what I wanted to be in this world. Never did I dream that one day I’d be on publicists’ lists to review their authors’ efforts, Read more