Tag: Nicholls Culinary Institute

Nicholls Culinary Institute Gains Two Scholarships from Rouses Markets

It was recently announced that the Nicholls’ Chef John Folse Culinary Institute will be receiving two new scholarships from a Louisiana grocery store chain.

Having just celebrated its 60th–anniversary last year, the Louisiana-based grocery brand known as Rouses Markets opened one of its first stores in Houma, so it’s only poetic that the two new scholarships offered to future culinary institute professionals at Nicholls will be named after influential members of the Rouses’ legacy. One scholarship will be named after Anthony Rouse, Sr, who pioneered the first Rouses Market in 1960, and the other will be named after Leroy Theriot who was the innovative butcher and meat manager at the original Rouses Market.

The current CEO of Rouses’, Donny Rouse, said of the two new scholarships, “We’re happy to continue our commitment to Nicholls State University and the next generation of culinary and grocery professionals with the endowment of these two scholarships.”

Both scholarships are categorized as “endowed scholarships,” which are those academic grants that are established for scholarship funds to be awarded for multiple years, depending on the initial donation size. The director of the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute, Chef John Kozar, told the University that each scholarship would be ideal to cover the sets of fees culinary students will sustain or incur throughout their degree program.

As Anthony J. Rouse, Sr. was and still is a prominent name in the local grocery industry, the Anthony J. Rouse, Sr. Food Entrepreneurship Scholarship will award $1,500 per academic year to any part-time Rouses Markets employee or any dependent of any Rouses employees who are culinary institute majors. The scholarship board for the Rouses Scholarship will be giving preference to applicants who have an interest in food entrepreneurship.

In a similar trend, the Leroy Theriot Meat & Charcuterie Culinary Arts Scholarship will give preference to any applicants with an interest in the art of butchery and butcher crafts. Before he was Rouses’ first meat manager, Theriot was a prominent butcher at Ciro DiMarco’s grocery before DiMarco left the shop to open the initial 7,000-square-foot Rouses in Houma. According to Rouses’, the Theriot scholarship “seeks to develop the next generation of meat science professionals.”

When speaking on the naming and intention of each scholarship, Rouses CEO Donny Rouse said, “Leroy Theriot set the standard for every butcher who has followed him at Rouses. And Pa knew success doesn’t just happen; it is made to happen and requires sacrifice, dedication, and a commitment to quality and service. He was a true entrepreneur.”

Chef John Kozar, who has a valuable stake in both the culinary students at Nicholls and the nearby grocery industry, said of the partnership between university and grocery chain, “Rouses Markets has been a Bayou Region icon for nearly a century. Many of our students and graduates work for the company, and we are thankful for their constant support.”

The sentiment was echoed by the executive director of the Nicholls Foundation, Jeremy Becker, who remarked on the strengthening partnership between Nicholls and Rouses, two titans of the Bayon Region. Becker called the installation of the two new scholarships exciting and also rewarding in that they will “not only benefit Rouses employees but also honor two very important people in the history of Rouses; it is a great example of Rouses investing in their employees, their community and Nicholls.”

The Chef John Folse Culinary Institute is the single post-secondary institution in Louisiana that offers a four-year culinary degree. The sheer impact that the faculty, current students, and graduates have made on the culinary landscape of Louisiana is immeasurable, and that impact will continue to grow thanks to Rouses Markets’ two new endowed scholarships.

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Nicholls University Culinary Graduates Pivot Careers Amid Pandemic

Culinary Graduates from Nicholls University have had a less than ideal post graduate year thanks to COVID-19, but many are finding inspiration to adapt and think creatively in spite of the challenges, as reported in an article from HoumaToday.

In a regular year graduates of the prestigious Chef John Folse Culinary Institute at Nicholls State University have found great success in finding jobs in food business and culinary arts following graduation, but with the pandemic closing many doors and limiting the number of patrons a restaurant could serve, many graduates were laid off and found in need of a job.

Some chefs, like Breanna Bolden, owner of Baton Rouge’s Oven Bits and Pieces, found that the pandemic lit a fire beneath her as she began to adapt her business to suit the immediate needs of the times. Bolden  said that she is thankful for COVID more “than anything else that’s happened this year, and I might be crazy but it’s allowed me to see things more differently, opened a lot more doors and gave me a lot more opportunities than I had a year ago. Right after graduation, we’re so ambitious, and you have so many dreams and so many things you want to accomplish and you don’t really understand the weight of that or the possibilities behind it until situations like this happen.”

When the orders began to come in for restaurants to close and Bolden was affected, she began doing contract work for a local bakery, but once a machine broke leaving her without work for a week, the signs became clear and she realized that it was high time to go into business for herself. Now, she works from home, hoping to open a bakery after the pandemic ends, but until then she keeps it present in her mind, keeping customers distanced and palettes satisfied.

In addition to Bolden, two other recent Nicholls University culinary graduates, Kyong Han and Meifung Liu, also started their  Baton Rouge businesses amidst the pandemic. And while the couple had graduated together in 2018, they own separate businesses with Han doing Korean catering and Lie baking.

At the pandemic’s start, culinary graduate, Han was working as a sous chef and was consequently laid off as a result of the state’s closures. When he was offered his job back, he and Liu pivoted and instead decided to set out on their own back with catering. Liu remarked that about halfway through the pandemic, she assessed her work load and her life and decided that she wanted to make more than simply cakes every day. From that point onward, she began to dedicate more time to the “Two Plaid Aprons” blog, writing up more recipes.

At first, they were hesitant about beginning a local catering business, not knowing of Baton Rogue’s reception to korean cuisine, but after time passed, Han reports that business is pretty good. As of their post-pandemic plans, they hope to open a café in the future.

Another Nicholls culinary grad, Sous Chef Emily Johnson was working at the New Orleans School of Cooking where she taught hands-on private dinner classes when she had to file for unemployment as a result of the pandemic striking.

Left exhausted and amid unemployment paperwork, Johnson pivoted and began to volunteer her services. Johnson reported that she was “just feeling really down and not useful and not my normal level of energy, I decided to go and volunteer myself at a Second Harvest Food Bank,” where as many as 800-4,500 plates a night were served. Soon, as with other Nicholls grads, the pandemic began to show itself as an opportunity to recognize the importance of self reliance and sustainability when surrounded by unfamiliar times.

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