Culinary program a second career

Louie Bertino didn’t discover his passion until a little later in life. Now, the 45 year-old Columbia Falls man is thriving in the Culinary Arts program at Flathead Valley Community College. Originally from Rochester, New York, Bertino said in a recent interview that he and his wife have come up to the Flathead every summer since the mid-‘90s, and love the area.

“I had a good job, and I was good at it, but I hated it,” Bertino said. He worked as a loan officer at a credit union. In a way, it was that job that helped him find his love of cooking.

“I used to watch [The Food Network’s] Chopped at work,” Bertino said. “I would see it through the window of my office and I realized, this isn’t what I want to be doing.”

He started looking for cooking schools in Montana, and FVCC was the perfect fit.

Bertino said that he’s always cooked.

“If I wanted something good, I was going to have to do it,” he said. “My mom is a very follow-the-recipe cook.”

Even as a kid, Bertino liked to deviate from the recipe and try more exciting techniques and flavors.

Growing up, food wasn’t really on his radar.

“Motorcycles and music were my two big passions,” he said.

Bertino attended the Motorcycle Mechanics Institute and started a band in his younger years.

“I never thought about [being a chef] until I was at the bank and hating that job,” he said.

Bertino said that what he wants to do after graduation changes almost daily.

“Whatever we’re doing in class that day, that’s what I want to do,” he joked, “so it changes all the time.”

He does have a certain interest in sauces, one that his classmates take note of. One student in the program commented that Bertino is basically their saucier — a chef whose specialty is sauces — not unlike their professor, who has 53 years of experience as a saucier.

“Sauces are one of those things you think should be easy, but it’s not,” Bertino said.

Take, for example, the sauce Bertino helped create for On Fire, the pop-up restaurant that is the seniors’ capstone project. Bertino described a four-day process of reducing over 5 gallons of veal stock and wine and three pounds of butter into just about 2 gallons of velvety sauce, which topped the steaks he and his classmates seared for the smaller-scale soft opening of On Fire. The soft opening served as a test run for the pop-up eatery, which fully opened on Sept. 28 and will run for a month.

Also working the pop-up’s soft opening was Lydia Soto-Acero, 19, also of Columbia Falls. Unlike her classmate, Soto-Acero said that she has always known she wanted to cook.

“It’s what I’ve wanted to do since I was little. I always wanted to be a chef,” she said.

Soto-Acero took related classes in high school, and has found that pastry and wedding cakes are her favorite thing to work with at FVCC.

“I’m into the fine details,” Soto-Acero said.

Bertino echoed that sentiment.

“The artistry... I wanted to kill her in pastry class. Sitting next to her made me look bad,” he said jokingly. “She’s a genius.”

After graduation, Soto-Acero hopes to apprentice with a local bakery or cake studio and work towards owning her own cake decorating business.

Soto-Acero, along with about half of the seniors in the program, worked as a server at On Fire. After On Fire closes, Soto-Acero’s team will cook for another pop-up restaurant, Epoch, while Bertino and his team become waitstaff for the restaurant.

On Fire is open Wednesday- Friday 4:30 p.m.- 8:30 p.m. The restaurant is located in the instructional kitchen on the lower level of the Arts and Technology building at FVCC. It closes on Oct. 21. For more information or to make reservations, call (406) 249-5964 or visit www.fvcc.edu/restaurant.

Flathead Valley Community College also in September held its 9th annual Fall Festival of Flavors, a week-long culinary-inspired fundraising event that benefits the scholarship foundation.

Students in the culinary school participate in the kickoff event every year, and wine-pairing dinners are also hosted across the valley by professional chefs.

Chef Melissa Mangold was featured at a dinner held at the Belton Chalet in West Glacier on Sept. 20. The event, like others during the week, directly benefited student scholarships.