One afternoon in early February, the students in one of the Culinary Arts I classes at The LIFT were standing at tables throughout the kitchen learning how to make granola. They were listening intently to their teacher, a chef who graduated from Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Las Vegas and has worked for some of the top restaurants in and around Austin.
How Jonathan West found himself in that kitchen in Abilene after working in kitchens throughout Central Texas doesn’t matter as much as the fact that the students were learning from one of the best young chefs in Texas.
West served as the Chef De Cuisine at Barley Swine in Austin from 2010-14 meaning he was, essentially, the second person in charge of the restaurant. He served as the chef / proprietor of The Good Pot in Lockhart from 2019-20, and also worked at The Odd Duck Trailer in Austin, The Cheese Cave in Claremont, California, Licha’s Cantina in Austin, Central Market in Austin, Cafe 909 in Marble Falls, The Foundation Room in Las Vegas, and The House of Blues in Las Vegas.
All of that after graduating from Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in 2006.
So, what led a chef with that extensive experience at high-end restaurants to a job working in The LIFT, which houses ATEMS and most of the district’s CTE courses?
“After cooking for a long time, you start to look for the next thing you want to do in your career,” West said. “For a lot of chefs that’s open your own restaurant and start a business. I thought the best way I would be able to give back is to teach. My favorite part of cooking a lot of times was teaching young cooks how to cook and how to exist in the kitchen. I liked the idea of being able to do that in the classroom. Owning a business sounds great, but it’s a lot of work. This is actually something I wanted to do.”
And he’s done it very well, according to Jay Ashby, the Director of The LIFT and himself a “foodie.”
“Jonathan was very eager and interested early on when he first heard about the LIFT,” Ashby said. “He reached out to say he was interested in teaching. I think he’s a natural teacher. While it’s his first year, his ability to explain things and his extensive knowledge of cooking, ingredients and the restaurant business comes naturally to him. He’s demonstrated that from the very beginning.”
West had basic goals for the students in the program at The LIFT when the school year started: to learn foundational techniques on safety and sanitation.
“Those are the top two things a potential employer is going to look for in an employee,” he said. “Those things are what we focused on the first two weeks. We were able to set those good habits, not just of washing hands and what temperature to cook certain meats to but teaching cleanliness and how to clean up after yourself.”
After those early weeks, West and his classes were able to move into the actual cooking process where they have made everything from simple granola to more complicated items like gougère, a baked French pastry mixed with cheese.
“That’s something that not a lot of people around here have probably had, but the students enjoyed making them,” West said. “I’ve only had them because I went to a French cooking school. If I were to call them ‘cheese puffs’ here, people would give them a chance.”
One of the things Ashby liked about West’s early approach was his willingness to include students on the thought process of what to cook in class.
“I’ve seen huge growth in the kids this year,” Ashby said. “What he’s done a great job with is sparking their interest in all sorts of areas. He surveyed the kids at the beginning of the year in what they wanted to cook. He then took that information and scheduled some of those items and applied the themes those kids are interested in to what they’re learning. What I remember is a lot of students recalled dishes that their grandmothers or moms make or made. Or special ingredients from different cultures. He was able to use those ideas to tap into their interests.”
West’s job has been made easier by the space that he and the students have to work in at The LIFT.
“This facility is amazing; one of the nicest kitchens I’ve ever been in,” he said. “When I first got here, I thought it was way too big and had too much equipment. But we’ve hosted a couple of events and we utilize all the space and equipment. I’ve tried to convey to students that they should be grateful that we have this amazing space.”
And if what those students are learning leads one of them to cooking school or to working in a kitchen, or even owning or running their own restaurant, then West’s desire to teach will have been worth leaving the restaurant world behind.
“If someone decides they want to be a chef or work in a restaurant or own a bakery, that’s amazing,” he said. “But if we’ve steered them into making home-cooked meals because we’ve lost that in so many homes, then that’s amazing, too. I feel like I’ve piqued their interest in preparing those kinds of foods. We’ve gone back to foods that our grandparents would recognize as food rather than all the processed food that’s out there today.”
However, even West admits that one of his most recent creations might not get his grandfather’s seal of approval.
“We made Texas chili one day (in late January),” West said.
And then he added the unthinkable.
“I put chili in my beans,” West said. “My grandfather would turn over in his grave if he knew I did that.”
Indeed.
But it’s all part of the evolution of learning that happens every day at The LIFT and in classrooms across the AISD.
“We’re preparing students for their futures when it comes to joining the work force or going to tech school,” Ashby said. “That’s the common theme when it comes to CTE, right? Even if they go on a different route, they’re getting skills that are going to be useful for them. They might use these skills to just feed their family. They’re going to learn a lot of things. Maybe some of it won’t be fun. They have to learn about the health code, nutrition, safety, etc. It’s all a part of what they’re learning.”
