Chef is cooking for a cause
By Jan Larsen For The Herald-News February 22, 2012 9:06PM
Chef Michael Garahan, culinary arts instructor at Joliet Job Corps, with Christine Thurman, a culinary arts student from Chicago. | submitted photo
If you go
What: Fight childhood obesity by enjoying a delicious lunch
When: 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 2
Where: Joliet Job Corps, at 1101 Mills Road.
More: Dine-in or take home; cost is $15. If you can’t come to the lunch, you can donate money to the cause or pay for someone else to attend the lunch. Call chef instructor Michael Garahan at 815-768-8941 or e-mail matewanchef@yahoo.com. Proceeds go to Joliet Job Corps Student Government Association and Chef and a Child Foundation of the American Culinary Federation. CCF will use the money to create nutrition-based educational resources for the Chefs Move to Schools program, part of the Let’s Move! campaign to end childhood obesity.
Menu: Vegetable-stuffed purple potatoes, glazed ginger filet of beef, salad with roasted vegetables served with Hidden Valley ranch dressing (sponsors of this initiative) and a 24-ounce box of Garahan’s World’s Best Granola.
World’s Best Granola
Ingredients
1 pound butter
1 large box (2 pounds, 12 ounces) old-fashioned oatmeal
1 pound brown sugar
1 ounce vanilla
1 14-ounce bag coconut
1 pound slivered almonds
1 pound pecan halves
After melting butter and toasting the mix, you can add raisins, Craisins or chocolate chips. This makes 8 pounds.
A serving of a third cup is 68 calories, 34 of which are from fat. You can substitute two cans of fat-free cooking spray for the butter.
Updated: March 24, 2012 8:43AM
JOLIET — Chef Michael Garahan, culinary arts instructor at Joliet Job Corps, figures he has made about 10,000 batches of his World Famous Granola.
He developed the recipe in 1990 while working at the historic Chalfonte Hotel in Cape May, N.J. So in 22 years, he’s made 80,000 pounds of the stuff.
Much of it has been for fundraisers for his favorite causes: mammograms in honor of his late mother, the homeless, combatting childhood hunger. A lot of it has also been just to fill demand when he was a corporate or private chef.
Next week, it will be featured at a luncheon to raise money for the Student Government Association at Joliet Job Corps and for the Chef and a Child Foundation.
“My mom taught me to cook when I was 4,” he said.
He cooked his way through high school with a part-time job paying $1.65 an hour at Gino’s Fried Chicken in Jersey City.
Since graduating in 1977 from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., he’s had a varied career that includes top chef stints in Martha’s Vineyard and Alaska, corporate chef for the American Le Mans Race Series and banquet chef at the Las Vegas Hilton, to name a few.
He earned his certified executive chef certificate from the American Culinary Federation when he got into teaching, something he enjoys greatly.
He taught culinary arts at a high school, a vocational school and two other Job Corps before coming to the Job Corps here last fall and settling in Joliet.
Since then he has involved himself in the community by applying to be a Big Brother and helping a student raise money for the Alzheimer’s Memory Walk.
Garahan is a big believer in the American Culinary Federation, joining the Louis Joliet chapter and quickly becoming a committee chairman.
“I have a spot in my heart for working with students,” he said. “It’s a way of giving back. Hey, I still talk to my high school teacher. I like the idea of building chefs.”
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