The Other French Chef

Who Is The Other French Chef?

Julia Child is know as The French Chef so who is the “other” french chef?  Chef Deborah Ward was the Regional Program Chair for the Hospitality- Culinary Arts Program at Ivy Tech State College three campuses and 7 satellite programs in Northwest Indiana. With the support and encouragement of Chancellor Dr. Darnell Cole, she was instructing and leading student groups in French cooking training in France in the 1980’s thru 90’s when, like the era when Julia was in France, women were not often chefs.

Chef Ward is the only American Chef to have received the French Government’s Award, Merit et D’Evouement Francais (gold medal) for teaching and cooking French cuisine as well as for Humanitarianism. She also received the Medaille Bronze (bronze medal) for international teaching from the International Convention of the Chaines de Rotisseurs while in France. She is also an American Culinary Federation Chef(ACF)chapter founder.

The American Culinary Federation was founded in 1929 to help promote the professional image of American Chefs throughout the world through education at all culinary levels, from the Apprentice Chef to the most accomplished Certified Master Chef.

In 1995, Chef Deborah Ward, as an ACF chef, saw a future for an American Culinary Federation Chapter in Northwest Indiana. Another chef, Chef Muhammad Siddiqui, stepped in and helped her recruit Chefs to set it up as they co-founded the new Chapter whereas Chef Jim Gallagan was elected first chapter President.

Northwest Indiana Chapter of the America Culinary Foundation, between Chicago and South Bend, and north of Indianapolis.

Click on the Image to View a Picasa Slide show of more images of the Chef in France.

While at Ivy Tech State College Northwest, Chef Deborah Ward and her husband artist and now Chef Michael Ward developed a program to enable students to go to France and learn French cooking in some of the modest kitchens of France.

Chef Louis Retailleau, (the amazing Chef-owner of Bon Appetit Restaurant, Crown Point, Indiana) who was the Wards’ mentor and college instructor at the time, arranged for the Wards to contact the famous Premier Sommelier de France depuis 1962 (Best winemaster in France) Monsieur Gerard Angelovici, who created the most magnificent program of study for her students, in Paris and in a former palace of Napoleon in the south of France, Hotel du Palais.

The Wards moved in the 1990’s to the Silver Lake area of West Michigan, where they continued to lead groups of industry professionals to study trips in France and host French Culinary students as they trained in Oceana County. In more recent years Chef Ward has been consulting and working with hotels, working in research and development, managing restaurant, banquet facility, bakery, cooking school, including job retraining programs, and teaching French and American cooking-wine classes as well as classes on how to eat healthy vegan and raw food, cooking with fresh foods and the new natural grains.

Enjoy this great article, “Now You’re Cooking”  about the chef and and interview with the Ward’s in the May 2000 issue of Kiplingers Personal Finance Magazine. Click here to read it on Google Books.