• Free Culinary Learning Opportunity for Adults Opens in Kona

    February 27, 2023
    KAILUA-KONA, HI – HCC-Pālamanui and La`i`ōpua 2020 are offering adults interested in venturing into the culinary industry a free learning experience.
     
    The program centers on a free, non-credit, basic culinary skills curriculum and techniques of savory and baking principles. A combination of theory and hands-on experiences allow students to gain competencies in local Hawaiian Regional cuisine and cooking methods for meat, poultry, vegetables, salads and desserts.
     
    The sessions  include working in a commercial kitchen, learning about safe food handling and sanitation, creating menus using local, healthy foods, use and care of kitchen equipment, and knife skills. Each student will complete a food safety handling course. 
     
    The spring cohort begins April 18 and ends with a class ho`ike on May 11, 2023.
     
    Funded by a grant from the County of Hawai`i, the program aspires to not only provide culinary skills, but to assist participants in taking the next steps to employment or further education in the industry and improving the health and nutrition of haumāna and their family.
    The program will be led by Pālamanui Chefs Fernand Guiot, Catherine Harlan and Paul Heerlein,  Associate Professor/Coordinator Culinary Arts. Classes will be held in the evenings in the college’s culinary arts classroom/kitchen and in La`i`ōpua 2020’s commercial kitchen.
    If you are interested in applying to be part of this culinary learning experience, visit https://www.laiopua.org/culinary-program.
     
     ABOUT LA`I`ŌPUA 2020
    La`i`ōpua 2020 is a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide social, recreational, vocational, economic, educational, and cultural opportunities and infrastructure to Native Hawaiians to include the communities of the Kealakehe ahupua`a. It is a place for pilina (building and supporting one another through relationships) and pu`uhonua (a place of comfort, peace, and safety). For more information about La`i`ōpua 2020, visit its website, Laiopua.org, or call 808.327.1221.