It’s almost 2024! All of us here at Culinary Crossroads hope you’ve had a great year and a wonderful holiday season. And, of course, the season isn’t over quite yet. We’re sending wishes for a Happy New Year as well!
But before we launch into January, we thought we’d look back a bit at 2023. We’ve included a couple of our favorite newsletter items from the past year: the charming destination of Story, Ind., and a fun interview with the tenderloin guy himself, Rick Garrett, who for the past decade has been sampling breaded pork tenderloin sandwiches all around Indiana. We hope you enjoy the read and maybe find yourself inspired to pay a visit to Story or to try one of the tenderloins Rick recommends.
As for us, well, we’ve had a very busy 2023, starting with the launch of this newsletter a year ago, which was followed quickly by an On the Road collaborative chef dinner in Fort Wayne in February. We hosted our third annual Spring Dinner Series in Indianapolis in April as well as a reception for Indiana high school students in the SkillsUSA culinary competition at Ivy Tech Community College. We coordinated another On the Road dinner in Southern Indiana at Huber Winery in May and were happy to attend the monthly Paramount Schools of Excellence Sunday Supper Club dinners throughout much of the year, which helped raise funds for our Chef Greg Hardesty Culinary Scholarship at Ivy Tech. We awarded our first scholarships to two students for the 2023-24 school year, and we also launched our new CulinaryCrossroad.org website.
In October, we headed to Terre Haute for another On the Road collaborative chef dinner, and then in November we were off to Dallas for the World Food Championships to support Team Indiana chefs competing there. The competition included a new junior division with students from the Junior Chefs Academy at Paramount Schools of Excellence in Indianapolis. And one of the young Indy chefs won! Fourteen-year-old Tony Fernandez, aided by classmate and sous chef Tiffany Smith, took top honors in the inaugural WFC junior competition.
Earlier this month, we enjoyed a winter wine dinner at Ivy Tech’s fabulous Courses penthouse restaurant, with all dishes prepared and served by the school’s culinary students. What a lovely and delicious way to wrap up the year!
But there’s more to come. Stay tuned for news about upcoming On the Road dinners and more Culinary Crossroads initiatives in 2024!
