David Finley, Culinary Arts’ instructor at South Georgia Technical College, had a hard choice when deciding his future-landscaping or cooking.

So, he went to find help in getting the answers. “My mom said something to the effect of, trees are easy to find, but everyone needs food.”

“I became interested in cooking when I was 15. My best friend’s family owned a diner in Lubbock, Texas. I remember one Spring break they took me to Lake Tahoe with them, and paid for everything, and I thought I wanted to go into the (food) business because of the money.”

Finley smiled as if to say the rest was history, and then he added, “My favorite to cook would be Italian. I love the different regions of Italy.”

The Texas native did add, “I like chicken fried steak-the different between it and country fried steak is we use white gravy.”

Finley’s parents were in Atlanta, and when he got out of the Army Reserves’ training school, he came to Georgia.

At SGTC, Finley has charge of around 50 to 70 students a quarter. At the time of this article, he had three classes going-one which dealt with principles of cooking(knife skills, basic cooking skills), and another which dealt with learning American Regional Cuisine.

Pulling out the textbook, he pointed to a chart, “There are 11 different culinary regions in the U.S. Right now, we are on the southwest, Rocky Mountain area.”

The students, under Finley’s guidance with the assistance of adjunct instructor, Jennifer Slenker(who happens to be a former student of Finley’s), prepared three basic recipes-one of which was Finley’s creation(Chicken Florentine), and the others from the students’ textbook-Moros Y Cristianos(Cuba)(Black Beans and Rice) and Ropa Vieja(Cuba and Puerto Rico)(Shredded Beef), and lastly, Sopaipillas.

Jennifer Slenker said while watching two of her students practicing cutting techniques, “I have always cooked. Both of my parents cooked.”

“I have always loved cooking and it makes me happy,” she said, explaining why she chose to cook.

“I graduated through this program and went on to work at Aramark before this opportunity opened up,” Slenker said.

Edgar Lee, of Cordele, is a brand new student in the program, “I was in the military and cooked for eight years. I like the idea of learning how to cook a variety of ways so that I can feed everyone-Hispanics, Caucasians, Chinese, African Americans.”

Michael Triplett, of Atlanta, grinned, “I love to eat and will try anything.” Triplett is a 4th quarter student and will begin an internship soon. “I want to be able to open my own restaurant one day-where I can eat everything.”

One thing that Finley and Slenker stress to the students is that attitude is everything in the kitchen. “We go by recipes because of cost control,” said Finley.