Food Network star teaches class at College of Coastal Georgia

KINSGLAND - If the College of Coastal Georgia wanted a familiar name as its first distinguished visiting chef, Joshua John Russell delivered.

The Atlanta pastry chef, who has been featured 11 times on the "Food Network Challenge," used his communications skills as he demonstrated the art of cake decorating Wednesday at the college's Culinary Arts class at its Camden Center in Kingsland.

"It's pretty exciting,'' said Jennifer Lyon of Columbus, who lives in student housing at the Brunswick campus. "He's famous.''

Cake decorating can be daunting, but Lyon said Russell makes it seem less complicated.

"It's easier than I would have thought when he breaks it down,'' she said.

Russell has the necessary communication skills to pass it on in a classroom setting, said Skip Mounts, dean of the School of Business and Public Affairs.

"This is his art, his gift, his profession,'' Mounts said. "He takes his art seriously. He preps like a quarterback.''

He was all over the kitchen in the morning session, checking the students as they worked in teams. He took time to separate eggs by hand to make his own icing and showed students how to place their rolled-out fondant onto a cake without so much as a slight wrinkle.

"Nice color. Looks great,'' he told one team as he examined the fondant the two women had prepared. The fondant is the smooth layer over a cake's frosting that serves as the canvas for the decoration.

When it came time to demonstrate his technique, Russell took a knee, putting him at eye level with a cake. He used a fine brush to carefully paint on a thin design, then he went to work icing it. As he worked students watched carefully, took notes or recorded his words and movements with their cellphone cameras.

Russell stressed the basics although he told the students it's fine to use some labor-saving devices.

"It's fine to use those machines as long as you learn to do it right,'' he said.

In this age of celebrity chefs and cooking competitions with time trials, Russell cautioned that some things on TV aren't done exactly right and shouldn't be copied in the kitchen.

"They may be doing the right thing, but the producers aren't going to show it. They're going to show the dramatic,'' he said.

Mounts had no fears over what Russell would bring to the kitchen at the Camden Center along with his name recognition.

"He is probably one of the best-known new pastry chefs in the U.S.,'' Mounts said. "When people go to the [college] website and see we've had Joshua John Russell, it signals we do fine work."

So do some area chefs, Mounts said, and they also will be asked to come on campus and demonstrate their skills.

The visiting chefs will also embody success in the culinary arts.

"Young chefs will get to be around people who are living the dream,'' Mounts said.

For Abigail Hutchinson, executive chef at the Jekyll Island Club, it was a morning of "continuing ed" she can use in her own highly regarded kitchen.

"I wanted to go check out a great pastry chef. I have three pages of notes over there,'' she said.

terry.dickson@jacksonville.com, (912) 264-0405

Source: http://feeds.jacksonville.com/~r/JacksonvillecomNews/~3/xOiiWYzqrAo/food-network-star-teaches-class-college-coastal-georgia

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