Day: June 17, 2014

Culinary makes it on Kasa

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By Rene Thompson, Editor in Chief

Culinary instructors Kerry Logan and Amanda Scott got to share some of their favorite reci­pes for homemade ice cream and sorbet treats in the wee hours of the morning on a segment for 2 Kasa This Morning.

Wednesday, June 11 these chefs, as well as Culinary major and reporter for the Chronicle Daniel Johnson educated early bird audiences on easy to make frozen treats.

It was the first time a stu­dent joined instructors on a local segment, which Scott and Logan said they do for the culinary pro­gram from time to time to pro­mote what culinary has to offer to prospective students.

“A lot of people don’t know we exist, so it’s nice to get on there,” Logan said.

The instructors made coco­nut lime sorbet and vanilla bean ice cream, which students will be learning about in the coming weeks, Scott said.

“It was pretty neat; it was a challenge to work in some­what of a fake kitchen, so you kind of have to (adapt),” she said.

Logan said that there are many different types of frozen desserts and that the classifi­cations are usually based on where they originated, the type of ingredients, and the process that they go through when being made.

“It depends on where it comes from in the world, like gelato, Italian (ice), and granitase, so it just depends on where you are at,” adding, “Americans— we love our ice cream!”

Logan said the trio did two different segments with recipes and explained the vari­ances of some frozen desserts.

“We talked about the differ­ences first between sorbet and sherbet, and then the second segment was on ice cream and gelato,” Logan said.

Scott said they would love to keep doing different seg­ments as long as they are invited back, and that she hopes to get the Street Food Institute food truck on the show, as 2 Kasa This Morning has a food truck Fridays segment where they showcase local food trucks on the program.

Scott is also a supervi­sor and shift manager on the food truck, she said.

“It’s to get more CNM culi­nary exposure, and that we have a culinary school here. I like that the food truck is consistent work experience for our students and it’s a paid internship,” Scott said.

The experience that stu­dents get from the food truck is much like real restaurant expe­rience, so that students learn how fast-paced it really can be serving people and that chefs really have to think on their feet, she said.

The truck also changes the menu, sometimes even day to day, depending on if a student’s new recipes are being incorpo­rated, or if there are leftover supplies not used by students in culinary classes, she said.

“We are trying to be sus­tainable, so if we have a whole bunch of berries left­over, we might just do a smoothie day and the students are making new menu items that we are slowly putting on the truck,” Scott said.

Logan said that even Johnson’s can­died bacon recipe was in the segment as a topping for the vanilla bean ice cream, which she said that the group­ing of sweet and salty is a dynamite combination.

For more infor­mation on these recipes or to watch the 2 Kasa This Morning clips, go here

AWS Student Chapter Welding club builds stronger frame for students

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By Daniel Johnson, Investigative Reporter

The American Welding Society sets the national standards for all things welding and is a highly respectable origination throughout many of the careers that are available to students in the applied technolo­gies program at CNM, said Welding major and President of the AWS Student Chapter, Henno Van Arkel.

Students must be enrolled in welding classes and pay a $15 fee to be members of the CNM AWS chapter, he said.

“Fifteen dollars is a small price for someone like me to pay to receive all the knowledge and oppor­tunities that come with being a member of this group,” Van Arkel said.

Being a member offers many benefits, such as an emailed version of the monthly AWS pub­lication, as well as schol­arships and networking opportunities, along with many other prospects for welding students, he said.

Welding major and Communications Coordinator of the AWS, Genevieve Brechtel said the club participates in field trips, as well as presen­tations by guest speak­ers and different types of special projects.

“We as stu­dents and members of the AWS helped with the construction of the smoking shelters that are going to be placed at different locations throughout the CNM main campus,” she said.

The group is also involved with com­munity service projects, she said.

One of the proj­ects that AWS will host is going to have eighth graders come to CNM and learn about the basics of welding and how to read blueprints, Brechtel said.

Metals Technology major and Secretary of AWS, Zach Lopezsaid members of the club helped out with the state Skills USA com­petition this past spring.

“I was able to make sure the machines that were being used stayed operational throughout the competition, as well as making sure the stu­dents had all the stuff they needed to com­pete,” he said.

The AWS Student Chapter will also be help­ing with the Applied Technologies Boot Camps that CNM will be offer­ing in June and July for local high school students, Lopez said.

Metals Technology major and Historian of AWS, Elliot Reddinger said the club also ran the welding simulators for the high school stu­dents that came to CNM main campus for Career Technical Education Day.

“The welding simu­lators are pretty cool because they are like 3-D games that are scored based on how well a person welds,” he said.

Trying to get welding students to come together and participate as a whole is another objective of the club, he said.

Reddinger said weld­ing can be really competi­tive but that the club wants the students to know that while they are here they are like a family.

A fellow student might be somebody’s main competition for a job after they leave school, but while students are in school they should be able to learn and feed off of each other to become the best welders that they can be, he said.

“We have raffles and get togethers, like barbeques for the weld­ing program as a whole, so students can have an opportunity to get to know their peers,” Reddinger said.

Van Arkel said the club allows students an opportunity to net­work with local and state employers.

“It’s nice because you don’t only get the opportunity to know what job opportunities are out there you actually get to meet the people that hire employees on a one-to-one basis,” he said.

If a student is moti­vated then this club can help to make the roll over to the real world easier, he said.

Reddinger said a person has to be involved with other things outside of just working hard in the classroom.

“Employers don’t just want to see good grades anymore, they want to be able to see that a stu­dent is committed to their trade and involved with it,” he said.

When students grad­uate they want to be on top and a student needs to be able to have the ability to say that they did some­thing extra— this club will allow a student to do that, he said.

It is a really great opportunity for anyone who wishes to do more with his or her life then just have a possible job after graduation, he said.

Brechtel said the AWS student chapter has seen its up and downs due to the turnover rate, because of students gradu­ating and moving on.

“We would love to see more students come in and participate on a regular basis, so that the club does not see big one year (of participation), then little the next, we want a more consistent flow of students through the club,” she said.

Lopez said the club has meetings every Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. in the W building on Main campus and every­one is invited to come check it out.

“Even if you are not in the applied technologies program you can come and check us out to see if it is something you might want to get into,” he said.

Albuquerque Trolley Company shares its love for Burque

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By Nick Stern, Copy Editor

The Albuquerque Trolley Company has taken on the respon­sibility of being the first tourist attraction that many visitors see or participate when they arrive in the city of Albuquerque, said Jesse Herron, Co-owner of the Albuquerque Trolley Company.

The Trolley Company gives everyone in the community and tourists a chance to see the different and interesting locations and activi­ties that Albuquerque has hidden throughout the city, which helps people to get a general understand­ing of the city’s layout by touring the Best of Albuquerque City Tour, Herron said.

“It is a pretty big responsibil­ity and we are kind of like the wel­come wagon, so we feel like we are doing good for the city and we are representing Albuquerque as ambas­sadors,” Herron said.

The company has its box office location where tickets can also be purchased, located inside the Hotel Albuquerque in Old Town, at 800 Rio Grande Blvd. NW, he said.

All ticket prices for special tours, such as the (Breaking) Bad tour, the Albucreepy Halloween tour and Microbrew tours, are $40 to $65, with general admission city tour at $25 for adults and $15 for children 12 and under, Herron said.

The Albuquerque Trolley Company is co-owned by Jesse Herron and Mike Silva who said they run their company with pride and confidence, having chosen to reflect those feelings in the way that they market themselves.

“We realize that we are often a visitor’s first impression of Albuquerque. We market our­selves as the best first thing to do in Albuquerque, so we take it very seri­ously,” he said.

Jesse Herron said that ABQtrolley.com is the best place to get tickets beforehand and can also be used to get all the up-to-date times, dates and even news­letters that come out every couple of weeks for people who choose to sign up.

The city tours do a great job of giving people an understanding of what is where in Albuquerque and why it is interesting, Herron said.

The tours educate visitors about the city and have also taught many folks how much fun can actually be had which has led to people’s views switching from negative opinions to positive ones, Herron said.

“Hop on board with us for like an hour and a half for the City Tour and we will give you the lay of the land and a lot of times people are saying ‘wow, we had no idea there was so much to do here. We’re definitely going to spend more days here,’” he said.

Herron said he cannot keep track of how many visitors have altered their vacation plans to spend more time in Albuquerque, after going on one of the tours.

Herron also stressed the fact that the tours offered by the trolley company are by no means limited to tourists and visitors, He said.

Many locals have gone on the tour and were flabbergasted by how much there is to do in their city, which they considered boring before then, he said.

“A lot of people just assume that we are only for tourists and for visitors and that is definitely a misconception. We get locals who are not bringing visi­tors, they are just coming themselves because they want to learn more about Albuquerque and they are always after­wards like ‘ wow, we had no idea about all of this stuff in our own city,’” he said.

Many people believe that Albuquerque is a town with abso­lutely nothing to do and that Santa Fe is a better place to be, and this misconception is one of the reasons that motivated Herron and Silva to create the Albuquerque Trolley Company, Herron said.

Herron believes that people need to step outside of their limited perspec­tives towards the city, and that the tours give people a chance to do just that, Herron said.

“A lot of locals have this mentality that we are in the shadow of Santa Fe and there is nothing to do here and they just need to step outside of that perspec­tive. That is partly the reason we started the company because we were tired of people badmouthing Albuquerque and saying there is nothing to do here,” Herron said.

There is a plethora of different tours that are offered by the trolley company, but the current season, which lasts from April to October, consists of the Best of Albuquerque City Tour, the Bad Tour, and the soon-to-be Bad Tour 2.0, he said.

The Bad Tour is literally the most popular tour the company has to offer and has been a huge success, Herron said.

“The demand for the Bad Tour is just ridiculous. Honestly nine out of 10 emails are about that tour and same with the phone calls. We are getting emails and phone calls from people in England and Germany— just all over the world, who are just trying to plan their vaca­tion based around the Bad Tour dates, or whether or not they can get tickets,” Herron said.

Architectural and Engineering Drafting major Matthias Lopez, had been on the Bad Tour which he said is easily one of the best tours he has ever experienced and believes it to be the best attraction the city has to offer to tourists and locals alike, he said.

Lopez said the tour is much more than just a chance to take pictures of different locations from the show.

“The tour guides, who are also the owners of the trolley company, obviously put all their hearts into making the tours as interesting and enjoyable as possible, and it defi­nitely shows,” he said.

Lopez said that during the tour, when guides were not sharing their immense knowledge of the show, they were either holding trivia con­tests with prizes or directing the attention to the television screens that showed behind-the-scenes Breaking Bad footage, which Lopez had never even seen before.

Herron said he has a back­ground in hospitality and tourism and eventually reconnected with the idea that Albuquerque is missing the one thing that most big cities had— an actual city tour.

“We were both there for a couple years and we met there and then we kind of reconnected back in 2007 and were tired of working for the man so to speak, and wanted to do our own thing. One of the things that were kind of missing from the Albuquerque visitor experience was a city tour which most major cities have,” Herron said.

For more information on the Albuquerque Trolley Company, or its tours go to abqtrolley.com.

Trust when something is too good to be true

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By the Chronicle Editorial Board

The Know Now Mobile Medical Clinic coming to CNM campuses, which is offering free STD and preg­nancy testing, as well as ultrasounds, may just be too good to be true.

The chronicle covered in the Mobile Medical Clinic story ‘Mobile unit provides free STD testing,’ in Issue 35 of Volume 19, but it has come to light exactly what kind of company is offering these services and why.

It is great there is a service that provides these benefits to struggling students for free, but there may be a catch when students go for preg­nancy tests, as the organization that provides these services called Care Net is in fact an Evangelical Christian crisis pregnancy center.

According to care-net.org, Care Net is an anti-abortion organization that seeks to persuade women not to terminate their pregnancies, hence the free ultrasounds.

The organization was founded in 1975 in Northern Virginia, and is the nation’s largest network of preg­nancy centers with 1,100 throughout the country, according to the site.

In addition to advising customers against abortions and free STD test­ing, Care Net does provide a slew of other resources such as baby supplies, temporary shelters, employment and debt guidance, as well as Bible study sessions that fit with the company’s values, the site stated.

Women that believe in the right to choose what happens to their bodies, might get offended by the Care Net service provider while get­ting a pregnancy test, because Care Net has been known to attempt to dictate what women plan to do with the rest of their lives and their unborn child, or women with pro-life values might just find it refreshing.

Care Net’s mission statement on their website at care-net.org said “With the support of Care Net and its network of pregnancy centers, people facing unplanned pregnancies are choosing life and hope every day.”

Care Net has also been known to speak out against abortion clin­ics and set up near clinics such as Planned Parenthood that provide abortion services.

Care Net protests both out front of Planned Parenthood, and have signs in front of their clinics that say “Pregnant? Considering abor­tion? Free services,” according to the Care Net Wikipedia page.

The Planned Parenthood website states that whether clients want to keep or abort their fetuses, the clinic pro­vides women with the resource choices they would have for either scenario, without any influence on the client’s decision and just counsels women on what is out there for them to utilize.

According to vermontcynic.com, “Once inside the facility, women are subject to manipulative tactics, such as required ultrasounds and readings of religious literature that instill guilt and shame in those who may consider abortion. These types of centers seek to undercut the law and restrict a woman’s right to choose.”

So, if some women students out there want to utilize Care Net’s free pregnancy or ultrasound, be warned that the unit volunteers may try to persuade you under the guise of caring, but when it comes down to it the only person you need to listen to is yourself.

For those female students that would rather skip the judgments and religious/ethical debate, or the belittling of your own pro-choice beliefs; you may just want to pay the $10 pregnancy test fee at Planned Parenthood or the $65 for an ultrasound.

Not only for peace of mind, but also so that you will avoid being made to feel like an asshole or slut shamed for doing what millions of women did before you and will do for years to come, which is to get pregnant and not know what to do.