Tonight we chat food and culinary education with Sheree Mooney the co-lead judge from this years Pro Start Nationals. We talk about how the industry is changing with better education for incoming cooks, what we as chef's need to improve on, and we get her take on the "celebrity chef" in the digital age.

We also spend a little time defining some often mis-used terms in the food world with Chef.

Sheree Mooney’s dream started with a toy oven.

She would pull out her Fisher-Price oven, “cook” plastic hot dogs, put them on a plate and serve them to her parents.

That early love of cooking carried the 2008 alumna through The Collins College of Hospitality Management program to the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone to the executive sous chef position at San Francisco’s SPQR, which earned a prestigious Michelin star during her tenure there.

“My favorite thing about being a chef is that first bite someone takes,” she says. “How satisfied someone is is the most amazing part.”

About a year ago, Mooney returned to Cal Poly Pomona to fulfill another dream she has long had – teaching.

 

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