Success Stories: Where the money makes the difference
Amol Thanky, Texas Culinary Academy
2008 Stephan Pyles Scholarship Winner
 My name is Amol Thanky. I went to college to study finance, but after getting my first job in accounting, I realized that I hated it and decided to follow my longtime dream of becoming a chef. I attended Texas Culinary Academy in the 2007-08, graduating in August 2008 with an Associates Degree of Applied Science in the culinary arts.
During my tenure at TCA I entered the Stephan Pyles culinary scholarship competition. After designing a three-course menu and standardizing the recipes, two remaining contestants and I faced off at the Art Institute of Houston. Our dishes were blindly judged by local culinary experts and of course, the man himself, Chef Pyles.
The experience was intense. I worked right down to the wire; I believe I had only four seconds left on the clock when I completed my final course.
After being awarded the scholarship, I was on top of the world. For a few minutes. Then I remembered how much more work I needed to do to get where I wanted to be. I decided to get hotel experience, so I went to Arizona and worked in a JW Marriott resort. I was fortunate to work in the flagship restaurant, Ristorante Tuscany www.jwdesertridgeresort.com, which received four stars and was voted best Italian food in Scottsdale. The food budget was huge, and I got to use some really cool product, fresh white Alba truffles once, I can still smell them. The place was huge, fancy, and the desert with all the cactus and sand was interesting, but it was time for a change of pace.
I am currently back in Austin working for The Belmont, an Austin institution on Sixth Street. The downtown bustle and the live music on the patio keeps our three man line busy cranking out food like crazy, and I am enjoying my time on the sauté station. I am learning to become ever faster, cleaner, more efficient, while honing my line skills and building my speed.
What’s next for me? I am intrigued by a man named Heston Blumenthal who has a restaurant in England, the first and one of only two to receive three Michelin stars; The Fat Duck http://www.fatduck.co.uk/. I am trying to discover what it takes to get a stage, and hopefully a job there, because after my line training at the Belmont, I want to get back to the reason I started this journey. The food.
There are so many restaurants both in Europe and here in the United States run by chefs I admire and want to learn from. I learned so much going through the rigors of the Stephan Pyles scholarship competition, and never lose sight of the fact that passion, coupled with hard work and attention to detail are the tools that get the job done every time.
Carolyn Bream – Texas Culinary Academy
2006 Stephan Pyles Culinary Scholarship Winner
 After winning the Stephan Pyles Celebrity Chef Cook-off and graduating from Texas Culinary Academy, I went on to work under Chef Pyles for nearly a year at his namesake restaurant, Stephan Pyles (www.stephanpyles.com). Here I met and worked with some of the most talented chefs in Dallas. I was soon given the opportunity to work as saucier and linecook at another culinary hot spot in Dallas, Hibiscus Restaurant (www.hibiscusrestaurant.com).
In addition to working in restaurants, I used my former teaching experience, along with my love of food and nutrition, to hold cooking classes for local Dallas families. The main focus was teaching parents how to create fun and healthy lunches for their kids, along with ways to get the kids involved themselves.
Most recently, I am back in my home state of Virginia and am currently the sous chef at a small café/bistro that focuses on healthy living. I am also involved with the local public access television station, where I recently became certified to produce my own television show. So producing and hosting a cooking show is in the works.
Winning the Stephan Pyles Celebrity Chef Cook-off undoubtedly opened doors in my culinary career. Moving to Dallas and working in high-end restaurants with noteworthy chefs was priceless in terms of learning and growing in the kitchen after culinary school. I feel that the possibilities are endless and have big plans for my future in food. As for now, I am enjoying learning how to run a restaurant and can’t wait to get on the air!
Mexic-Arte Museum
www.mexic-artemuseum.org
The Foundation provided a seed grant to the Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin for a digital education initiative on the roots and culture of Mexican and Mexican-American cuisine. Entitled ‘The Gift of the Gods: Maize in Ancient and Contemporary Mexican Culture’ it was launched in Spring of 2009 on Mexic-Arte Museum’s website.
The program serves as a online mini-exhibition that explores corn in these ways: the origins of maize, maize in mythology, a Mesoamerican civilization timeline, maize recipes, and artworks from Mexic-Arte Museum’s permanent collection that depict maize. Interestingly, corn is a food that has no known wild origin, does not have a method to cultivate itself, and therefore requires people to plant and grow it.
Included are recipes that are corn based such as; masa (dough), tortillas, sopa de tortilla a la mexicana (tortilla soup), crepas de cuitlacoche (crepes from an edible Mexican fungus), red tamales, corn pudding, and champurrado ( corn based beverage). The recipes are accompanied by colorful photographs and viewers are encouraged to try the various corn dishes.
By examining food as an important part of Mexican and Mexican American art, culture and history the Museum is able to enhance knowledge about artworks in its permanent collection. For example, the serigraph print by Alex Dempster Maiz Moderno illustrates the god of corn bursting out of a corn cob whose kernels depict various Mexican symbols. Cleofas Ramirez Celestino’s painting provides a scene that shows corn fields within a community which is caught up with celebrating Day of the Dead; an ancient ritual that continues through the present. These artworks are not only popular when displayed at the Museum but also illuminating.
The program has inspired the Museum’s efforts to educate about art through food. The Gift of the Gods helps people to see the permanent collection in new ways. Food is artistic and creative and fits well into the mission of being a Museum of Mexican, Mexican American, and Latino art, culture, and history.
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