President's Message

President's Message
In the past month, I bought two fabulous books, Becoming a Chef and Culinary Artistry, on the recommendation of some Chefs. I kind of regretted not getting the books earlier as they are really good books that every Chef should read. Becoming a Chef shares with us life as a Chef. Hear stories and experiences of the many chefs interviewed in the book and explore questions like choosing between schooling and apprenticeship. Culinary Artistry on the other hand pairs ingredients that are heavenly matches. Through the book Becoming a Chef, I've learned how wonderful our profession is. It is the only few professions which allows us to learn new things everyday. The dishes we have yet to taste, the new techniques we have yet to learn, and the ingredients we have yet to discover, all symbolises a lifetime of learning, experiencing and enjoying.

It has been an even greater challenge to be a chef these days. I was watching Star Chef 2 on television the other day and the mystery box items they gave the contestants were totally unimaginable. Who would imagine getting ingredients like chicken feet and heart, pork skin and cow's heart? Rarely in international competitions will one find such ingredients, which chefs usually shun. I quote Paul Lenz saying "You should always ask yourself: What ingredients do I use? Where do they come from? What can I do with them? How can I eat them?" These words really inspire me when I deal with ingredients each and everyday in the kitchen. Recent reality cooking shows like Top Chefs, Iron Chef, Star Chef and Hell's Kitchen has also brought interest to our profession. By the way, I am really excited about the HoTchef Team Challenge 2008, which will be held in November, later this year. Hongkong Young Chefs Club is going to have their first HoTchef Team Challenge this year in September and their winning team will be flying over to compete in our challenge. I would like to thank Tabasco for their kind support towards grooming junior chefs here and in the region. In the meanwhile, look out for more news about the HoTchef Team Challenge 2008 on our blog soon.

Best Culinary Spirits
Jasper Jek
President
Singapore Junior Chefs Club

Website of the Month: Alinea

Website of the Month: Alinea

This month we feature www.alinea-restaurant.com/ If you love beauty, this is definately a website you should catch. Not only does it contain many beautiful photos of creative dishes, its restaurant itself looks modern and sophisticated. Yes, its "Home" page does look a little dull though, but wait till you inch alittle further into its neatly catergorize subpages, will you find the hidden gems.

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Alinea Restaurant was opened in 2005 and has won many awards ever since. Among them are Best Restaurant in America by Gourmet magazine (2006) and Jean Banchet Award - Best Fine Dining (2007). A scroll of its subpage "press" shows a never-ending list of reviews by press from around the world.

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What I love most about the website are the crystal clear high resolution pictures of the fine creative dishes. Scrolling the gallery reminisces looking through old camera films. I wonder if you call their creations avant-garde, but I believe they invest alot on technology, such as with the company PolyScience, and also on their unique tablewares.

Check out this website and you might find Beauty...

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Best Culinary Spirits

Jasper Jek

President

Singapore Junior Chefs Club

Invitation to WYPALL* ExploraQuest Singapore

Invitation to WYPALL* ExploraQuest Singapore

Guys, form a team of 5 and take part in this exciting game... Lotsa Prizes awaiting to be Won...

The very First ExploraQuest is now in town! ExploraQuest is designed as a walk-about adventure race based on the theme of "the quest of versatility and sensory delights". There will be lots of actions, lots of adventure and loads of fun. The most exciting part would be this event is brought to you absolutely FREE OF CHARGE! The event will be held on 19th July 2008 (Saturday) at the Singapore River.

Prizes:Champions - SGD $1,500 + Trophy + WYPALL* Products
Runners Up - SGD $700 + Trophy + WYPALL* Products
3rd Placing - SGD $500 + Trophy + WYPALL* Products
4th Placing - SGD $350 + Trophy + WYPALL* Products

Read Details and Registration forms below

Interested Parties, please approach your institution's Liaison Officer to register A.S.A.P

Edu-Trip to Huber’s Prime Meats & Sausages

Singapore Junior Chef Club (SJCC) organized an exciting educational trip to Huber's Prime Meats & Sausages on the 10th May ’08. Huber’s is one of the finest production meat factory in Singapore. There were a total of 28 enthusiastic SJCC members who took part in the event on that day.

Upon our arrival, we were warmly welcomed by Mr. Andre Huber, Sales Director of Huber’s. There were many highlights during the tour. We were given detailed briefings and explanation about the whole process of making sausages and curing of ham which nowadays is not easily seen in the industries.

One interesting part of the tour was that we saw how a whole strip loin was trimmed and portioned into standard cuts.

At the end of the tour, we were even more delighted when we were given a small food tasting session. The products we tasted were tasty and delicious. During that session we have a one on one session with the founder of Huber’s. We learnt about their history and the origin where the meats are from. The edu-trip has greatly increased our knowledge of meat and sausage making.

The overall assessment of this trip was fun and knowledgeable; I will definitely visit them again. It has been a successful trip and I will work closely with my fellow committee members and sponsors to organize more of these events in the near future.

With Culinary Spirit,
Athejo Chia
Social Activities

Family Day notice 1

Block your dates for...
SCA FAMILY DAY!

15 June, 9am - 5pm Bottle Tree Park @ Yishun 81 Lorong Chen Charau
Come join us for a full day of fun, food and games!

Stay tuned for more details...

SCA Family Day 2007

Website of the Month

This month we feature The-Best-Chefs.com . A fellow colleague of mine recently introduced me to this enriching gourmet portal. It gives you knowledge of a myriad of restaurants and chefs in Europe. Restaurants and chefs de cuisines are neatly categorized alphabetically or by countries, making searching hassle free. A click on a chef’s name brings you to his detailed portfolio, listing his nationality, apprenticeship/training background, career, philosophy, awards and interesting habits. The site also boast a “restaurant ranking” page which allows you to browse the T0p 50 restaurants in Europe. Should you like to dine at a particular restaurant, you may try searching for it under the “online-reservations” page and book a reservation. The website is still pretty new; hence there aren’t many posts on their forum page. The website is also available in German and French. These two versions have a larger community viewership, thus are better developed and have a larger forum. The site also offers the latest news in the European culinary scene.

Overall I find The-Best-Chefs.com a useful website and would recommend it to my friends.

P/S: Fellow members, if you have a website to recommend and share for Website of the Month (WOTM), please feel free to email us or "shout" on the tag board...

Best Culinary Spirits

Jasper Jek
President
Singapore Junior Chefs Club

Edu trip to Huber's poster

Members who are not in their Institutions may register through the following address:

sjcc_jasperjek@yahoo.com

ANNOUNCEMENT

SCA AGM Cum "Lo-Hei" Dinner

will be held on Sunday 17 February 2008

0400 pm @

Swissotel Merchant Court

Check http://www.asiacuisine.com.sg/singchefs/ for details.

Please approach your institution's Liaison Officer to RSVP.

TP: Ms Eileen Phua & Joyce Goh

ITE: Mr Ignatius Leong

at-sunrice: Ms Vicole

SHATEC: Mr Derrick Lau or

Mr Ignatius Leong

Closing date 4 February

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PS: Members who fail to register may be turned away

Writeup: Edu-trip to SATS Catering

Write-up: Educational Visit to SATS Catering Inflight Centre

“If you ever said that we are running a factory, you will never be welcomed to SATS in-flight catering. We are committed to constantly explore new methods and to upgrade equipment and technology to ensure that all meals produced appeal to the most discerning taste buds”, quote Executive Chef of SATS in-flight catering Chef John Sloane.

It was a Saturday morning, we, Singapore Junior Chefs Club (SJCC), assembled at Tanah Merah MRIT and waited anxiously for what to anticipate at SATS Inflight Catering located near Changi Airport.

SATS has come a long way since its modest start as part of the Malaya-Singapore Airlines more than 50 years ago. Since then, it has grown from strength to strength, developing into one of the premier players in the world providing a full spectrum of integrated ground handling and inflight catering services. The latest technology and innovative management is combined to meet airlines high catering standards. Costing a total of $217 million to build, including $77 million worth of kitchen equipment and material handling systems, it offers an impressive state-of-the-art inflight catering facility to meet international airlines' stringent requirements. The new centre will allow SATS to boost its efficiency, productivity and responsiveness with capacity to meet future growth and demands. SATS is clearly positioning itself to provide better services in the years ahead.

Being the privileged few, we were able to see and explore the secrets of their success in providing more than 500,000 meals a day.

The further expansion of SATS In-flight Catering Centre today broaden SATS' commitment to develop a competitive and vibrant inflight catering service to support Singapore's position as a regional air-hub. With this new centre, SATS is better positioned to serve its airline clients and to help anchor more such clients to Changi. The new centre will allow SATS to boost its efficiency, productivity and responsiveness with capacity to meet future growth and demands. SATS is clearly positioning itself to provide better services in the years ahead.

With Culinary Spirits
Terence Chua
SJCC Member

ANNOUNCEMENT

Registration for SATS Catering Edu Trip is now CLOSED

Thank you for your support!!!

SATS Edu-Trip Poster

President's Message

President's Message

The year is coming to a close, and a new year will soon spring. As we look forward to the new year, let us recall the various events that we shared.

In 2007, we saw the birth of two new culinary institutions, the Temasek Culinary Academy (TCA) and the Institute of Technical Education (ITE). The Singapore Junior Chefs Club (SJCC) held activities ranging from enriching educational fieldtrips to companies such as Nestlé Research & Development Facility and Fassler Gourmet, to food and wine pairing sessions. Our members looked forward to the annual Tabasco HoTchef Team Challenge, proudly sponsored by McIlhenny Asia Pacific Pte Ltd in September. This is the third consecutive year the Tabasco HoTchef Team Challenge is organized, and we are proud to say that it is getting bigger and better every year. We look forward to bringing you the Tabasco HoTchef Team Challenge again in 2008.

The year 2008 will be a more challenging year for us. The Food & Hotel Asia, Asia’s largest international food and hospitality event, will be held in April. We can expect many of our members and their working establishments to be training hard and vying for the titles and medals in FHA 2008 Culinary Challenge. The much anticipated Formula 1 racing will also have its first night race in our garden city. Room occupancies are expected to soar to a record high; therefore we can expect much hard work in the month of September.

Beyond our shores, the 33rd WACS congress would be held in Dubai in May. The event will be in conjunction with 2 major competitions, the Hans Bueschkens Junior Chefs Forum and the MLA Black Box Culinary Challenge finals, of both Singapore will have representatives competing in. The Singapore National Culinary Team will also be taking part in the 22nd IKA / Culinary Olympics in Erfurt, Germany.

With these new challenges coming our way, I believe it will spur us to bring the culinary scene in Singapore to greater heights. Young Culinarians, as we bid farewell to a good year 2007, we must look forward to a better year 2008, all the best in the New Year and may we all succeed in our work hard in the coming year! Cheers!

With Culinary Spirits,
Jasper Jek
President
Singapore Junior Chefs Club

Vice Chairman's Message

First of all, I am please to announce that SJCC has just enrolled 183 new members from four different culinary institutes, namely Temasek polytechnic, SHATEC, at sunrise and ITE. A big thank you to my team of dedicated committee members and liaison officers from various culinary institutes for the hard work contributed.

Since the club’s birth in May 2004, our challenges have become tougher each year. Besides organizing workshops, charity activities, educational trips to industry, recently we had even sent our young talents to oversea, Perth to take part in culinary competition and great result was bought back in glory. Indeed we are proud of them.

This fulfills one of the missions of the club which is to spot and inspire enthusiastic culinarians and to provide opportunities for them to explore their culinary talents and spirits through proper guidance. All these would not be achieved, without the support from SCA and various sponsors.

Therefore, on behalf of the committee I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to Chef Otto Weibel, Chef Eric Teo, Chef Jasmine Ng (former SJCC Chairman) from SCA Committee, also not forgetting all other sponsors or helpers that assisted and supported SJCC throughout the years. Once again, thank you all!

Best Culinary Spirits,
Ignatius Leong
Vice-Chairman
Singapore Junior Chefs Club

SCA D&D 2007

SCA Annual Dinner & Dance 2007

Swissotel the Stamford

It was event not be forgotten. It was a dinner & dance, yet, it was a food fest, a mini rock concert! “Rock Star” Chef Eric Teo was the highlight of the moment. Imagine: Being a rock star for the night, instead of being tossed into the roaring crowd, you are gently lowered off the stage and “buoyed” around by a sea of people with hands in the air. That was exactly what happened to Chef Eric Teo, President of Singapore Chefs Association (SCA), during this year’s SCA Dinner & Dance.

The theme was black and the venue, Raffles Ballroom Swissotel the Stamford. It wasn’t surprising to see 500 Men in Black there! A cocktail reception greeted the guests and soon the doors to the ballroom were opened. However no one was allowed to go for the food until the Emcee finished his formalities of games and introduction.

There was also a pole dancer who demonstrated her prowess of pole dancing and her endless and mind blowing acrobatic stunts! It was indeed an eye opener for all. As most of the guests may not have experienced a “live” pole dancer. It was a sexy, exotic performance, yet classy and professional.

Food was excellent as always of any SCA event. You could have a taste of the world. From Sushi and Sashimi of Japan to Peking Duck of China, Sausages of Germany to Lasagna of Italy. One would have tasted the cuisines of the world in just a single event.

The reception area was lined with beautiful confectionaries. Cakes, Pies, Haagen-Dazs Ice cream! With that many sweets around, I guess everyone had to put in extra effort to burn off those calories. The highlight of the night was nothing else but the lucky draw. The grand prize was a Philip’s flat screen TV. Members had to gather in from of the stage to win the prizes. If they weren’t in front and their numbers called, their draw would still be void. There were a total of 197 prizes, which makes a 40% chance of someone winning something.

Lucky Draw Prizes!!!

At the end of the night, I believe each and everyone who attended the dinner had fun and brought something back with them. I am beginning to wonder what next year’s SCA Lo-Hei dinner will be like.

With Culinary Spirits,
Jasper Jek
President
Singapore Junior Chefs Club

Vice President's Message

Being a committee that witnesses the birth of SJCC since May 2004 till now, I cannot deny that we faced numerous challenges all along. We always tried our best to provide the best. However, it will be discouraging to get the negative feedbacks.

All committee comes from different culinary institute, be it current students or graduates, all of us make an effort to volunteer our service to the club. We take our own time to work things out for the club. We have monthly meetings to attend, deadlines to meet, recruitment drive to run, brainstorm for new activities, execute the activities, etc…

Our main objective is to gather all young culinarians together to share their experiences at activities planned. We do not ask for much but just hope that our efforts could be recognized by members, also hoping to achieve better each time.

Everyone learn from mistakes and that is how we gain our experience too. Personally, I have seen the club grown all this years and I grown together with it. I believe we will improve further, the club will shine brightly and recognition is on its way. We will try our very best to work up to the standard.

We welcome our feedback and new ideas. Should you have anything to say it out loud, drop us an email: SJCC_Contacts@yahoo.com

Thank you!

With Culinary Spirit
Kelly Ng
Vice President