Harvest Moon Cookbook

Letter from the C-CAP Executive Director

Dear Edible Phoenix Readers,

Published in these delicious pages is not just a menu of local specialties created by your high-school students, their teachers and/or their chef mentors, but also the stories of your neighbors. Their heritage, families and beloved foods are all writ large in these recipes. They tell the story of the vibrancy of Arizona, of the melting stew this gorgeous corner of the world has become.

Food is a universal language, a shared lingua franca. Food is also big business: From the success of Arizona’s restaurants featuring local, seasonal and indigenous ingredients to the world-class resorts and destination dining, food has become a career and a livelihood for so many. This is where the Careers Through the Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP) comes in.

Begun 31 years ago by culinary teacher Richard Grausman, it has grown from one school to more than 150, from a handful of students to 20,000 across six cities and regions. C-CAP Arizona is the largest of our chapters, with about 9,000 students annually in 50 schools. Led by longtime Arizona Program Director Jill Smith and Jelani Port, a 2009 C-CAP alum, this program sizzles. No doubt founding Arizona Program Director Barbara Colleary would be thrilled.

Thanks to the generosity of our C-CAP donors and supporters, our Arizona students have received culinary, job and life skills training. Those who are interested in higher education have competed in our C-CAP College Scholarship Cooking Competition in the hopes of winning a scholarship, to be used at culinary and other higher education colleges. To date, C-CAP has provided a total of $64 million in scholarships in our three decades.

For those students who’d prefer to go straight into the workforce, C-CAP has built a robust internship and apprenticeship program so that students can get paid employment and experience.

We so hope you will support C-CAP once you are inspired by these delicious recipes. A fun way to do so is to come eat, drink and be merry with us at the seventh Harvest Moon Feast, hosted by world renowned chef Mark Tarbell. Scott Conant will sign copies of his latest book, Nate Nathan and the MacDaddy-O’s will perform and a who’s who of Arizona chefs will help our students cook up their big dreams at the benefit. Tickets can be found at ccapinc.org/events.

Warm wishes,

Tanya Steel, Executive Director, C-CAP