In the kitchen at Hancock County Technical Center, learning has been going far beyond recipes under the direction of Ms. Camille Frost.
Students in the culinary arts program are learning to balance creativity with precision, academics with hands-on practice, and passion with professionalism — preparing them to graduate as well-rounded chefs ready for college, careers, and service out of any restaurant.
While it looks like our students are still up to their same old tricks – cheffing up the yearly VFW Thanksgiving meal, welcoming the community weekly at the Brookside Restaurant, preparing meals for HCTC school-wide events, and competing at SkillsUSA – behind the scenes, Ms. Frost also has them exploring new curriculum, gaining academic skills and certifications, and discovering areas of the kitchen that they may have never explored before stepping into the kitchen on Boggy Brook road.
Today’s HCTC Culinary Arts graduate is as versatile as any young chef- with both food and personal skills that prepare them for any kitchen, anywhere.
“A big one is employability- a lot of kitchens like experience, and this place gives you both experience and an education,” says Anthony Kimball, a three-year culinary student with Ms. Frost. “That makes you a more viable option, attractive to employers.”
Kimball is the only three-year student with the Culinary Arts program this year – joining Frost as a sophomore with a knack for baking, not knowing how he’d grow over the course of his education.
“I’ve definitely come quite a ways I’d like to think – I think there’s just something special about being able to take nothing and turn it into something, and food can go a long way,” Kimball says. “Ms. Frost gives us all the general idea in the first year what the expectation is. She might start me off with a baking task and then next week have me do something else – rather than keep me in the same spot, she’ll push me out a little bit, past my comfort zone, and really give me the experience that would be good for any young chef.”
Senior Alison Seeds has had a similar experience.
“You know how to use a flat top, the grill, the deep fryer – we all learn all the skills. So you can take it and go really anywhere,” she says. “Ms. Frost does a good job with keeping it all well-rounded. If you like baking more, she still pushes you to do other stuff, and it just makes you a lot more well-rounded.”
While the passion for food and creating is what brings people to Ms. Frost’s kitchen, it’s the variety of skills being taught that keeps them there.
“I was not sure of what I wanted to do for a while- I jumped around, but then after coming to a visit here and hearing Ms. Frost talk to us, it solidified, ‘This is what I want to do,’” Seeds says. “I like it here because I get to move around, I get to learn a lot of things that I probably wouldn’t learn and techniques I didn’t know about.”
“It makes it pretty easy for me to do a task when it needs to be done,” Kimball says. “I’m able to do a lot of stuff on my own now that I wouldn’t have been able to do without coming here. It’s nice to know that you can do this if needed someday, and it’s good to have those skills. Not everyone heads into a kitchen after school with those skills on hand.”
It’s not just knife skills or precision baking that the students are picking up, either. Through the Culinary Arts program, they’re receiving academic credits in Math, Art, and English that go towards graduation.
“We have our hands on time here in the lab - the kitchen - where we dive in, we do the cooking, baking, whatever it is,” Kimball says. “But then we have classroom time where we work through math problems to help figure out recipes, and pricing, and we have our own vocabulary that a lot of places wouldn’t have you study.”
“It’s a mix of both classwork time and being in the kitchen doing stuff, and I like that. I got to drop my math class – so that’s pretty great,” Seeds jokes. “It’s important, especially if you’re going to go off and maybe open your own restaurant, work in a restaurant, this stuff is important – and it’s not bad math, it’s good math.”
On top of earning academic credits toward graduation requirements – HCTC’s young chefs also have the opportunity to gain college credit and certifications that can be used to qualify for workplace positions right away after graduation.
Ms. Frost is a certified instructor through both Eastern Maine Community College and Southern Maine Community College and has since added two college courses concurrent with the Culinary Program. They are optional, but students have the opportunity to leave with their High School diploma and six total college credits, including their ServeSafe manager certificate, which immediately qualifies them for management positions in kitchens.
Students in the program aren’t just preparing for the workforce or further education — they’re also ready to compete against culinary peers across the state. While Kimball pursued some advanced training through ProStart, an industry-backed culinary and restaurant management program for high schoolers, Alison Seeds joined the HCTC team at SkillsUSA, earning a bronze medal in the state’s cake-decorating competition out of 11 contestants.
While preparing for the next step in their careers or for the next round of competitions, Ms. Frost’s students are already benefiting from the strong reputation of HCTC Culinary Arts — even before they take flight from under her wings.
Seeds, set to graduate this coming spring, is currently working in the kitchen of ‘86 This’ in Downtown Ellsworth - a gig she earned in part to her status as a Culinary Arts student.
“I think because I came from here, they had those higher standards and knew I could meet them,” she says.
Both Kimball and Seeds are two of several of Ms. Frost’s students with future aspirations to become chefs – and they’re well on their way, too. Kimball has applied to the Culinary Institute of America in New York City, and is waiting to hear from them as well as SMCC! Seeds is looking to remain somewhat local, continuing her education at either EMCC or SMCC, as well – two of the programs they’ve already technically taken classes with!
Wherever they go, the passion that brought them to Ms. Frost and the skills they’ve developed while under her wing have planted the seeds to be successful in any kitchen in any area of the country.
“Food can go a long way,” Kimball says. “Whether you’re helping out homeless people or just making someone’s day. It’s like a language.”