Our Chefs
Meet Our Chefs
Culinary Adventures courses begin in mid-October and will be taught by some of Columbia’s most skilled chefs including:
Brook Harlan, a culinary arts instructor at the Columbia Area Career Center, also serves as Inside Columbia’s food editor. The native Columbian is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y. and has been a fan of farmer’s markets since his apprentice days at Commander’s Palace in New Orleans. Harlan has coached a string of state champions in the annual SkillsUSA competition and was a contestant on the Food Network’s debut season of the next “Food Network Star”.
Adam Wells-Morgan, a native Columbian, is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and is currently the executive chef at The Club at Old Hawthorne. At Old Hawthorne, he likes to incorporate different cooking techniques, seasonal ingredients and eclectic flavor combinations to keep things interesting for his diners. Wells-Morgan won top honors last summer in the 21st annual National Taste of Elegance contest sponsored by the National Pork Board.
Benjamin Hamrah has grown up in the Columbia food service industry; as a youngster, he often wandered the kitchens and back rooms of his father’s restaurants. A graduate of Chicago’s Kendall College, he interned at the Michelin-starred Le Grand Ecuyer in southern France. Now executive chef at Peachtree Catering & Banquet Center, he likes to use seasonal, local ingredients in his menus.
Sara Fougere is owner of Sara Fougere Catering and co-owner of the new Catering Kitchen located in the Village of Cherry Hill. Fougere is talented in creative food preparation, artful presentation and impeccable service. Her new venture, the Catering Kitchen, will allow customers to purchase their favorite catered items and meals to take home. She has a degree in Food Science from the University of Missouri, and loves to use the skills she learned while growing up on a farm in Richmond, Mo. to create fabulous food using the freshest and most available local ingredients.
Craig Cyr has been lauded in the press for his prowess in the kitchen, and The Wine Cellar & Bistro is making headlines, too.
Cyr’s restaurant has been honored by Wine Spectator magazine for having one of the most outstanding selections of wine in the state. The award-winning executive chef has a penchant for blending international cuisine with local delicacies.
Julie Sexten makes pastries and desserts at Flour Girls Bake Shop, a bakery in her Ashland home, named for her three girls Macie, Morgan and Millie. An Indiana native and University of Kentucky alum, Sexten took her first bakery job in college, then started catering in graduate school at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She also spent time in France where she learned about the food system and “studied” traditional bakeries. Sexten and her husband later moved to southern Illinois where she started her home business. She moved her business to Ashland when her husband took a job with the University of Missouri four years ago.
Mike Odette dropped out of college, abandoning his chemical engineering studies to begin a chef career at Café Europa and Europa Bakery in 1988. He worked at Trattoria Strada Nova and Booche’s before opening Sycamore in 2005. In 2009, Odette was a semifinalist for the James Beard Foundation award in the “Best Chef: Midwest” category.
