In the United States, 40% of food is wasted each year. This staggering figure sets off alarm bells: the status quo is unsustainable (pun intended). That’s why ICE and The New School organized the first-ever Zero Waste Food conference — to drive the conversation surrounding eliminating food waste and increasing sustainable food production.

Much of my day-to-day work at ICE — in its kitchens and in the Chocolate Lab — revolves around unraveling the inner workings of ingredients, recipes and the finished preparations that result. This is an important aspect that all cooks consider on some level. Whether seeking to create inventive new dishes or perfect the classics, a pinch of food science will always help us achieve our goals.

In a dining room on the ground floor of the Whitney Museum, where an open kitchen sits across from a towering glass wall and not an inch can escape the natural sunlight, I met with Suzanne Cupps (Culinary Arts, ’05), executive chef of Untitled. With a menu featuring colorful contemporary American cuisine, Untitled has enjoyed warm critical reviews, including a place on the New York Times “Critic’s Pick” list.

ICE and USHG have paired up to offer Understanding Wine: a unique wine course led by James Beard Award-winning Wine Director and Master Sommelier, John Ragan. The course is based on the same insider educational curriculum taught to all USHG sommeliers, and ICE’s Content Manager Caitlin Raux had the chance to tag along on this 10-part voyage into the world of wine.

Bright, fresh and packed with flavor, herbs are an essential part of every chef’s training.

I come from a long line of salt lovers. My mother loves telling the story of my grandfather, who during peak tomato season, would arrive at our house, grab a salt shaker and head out to the garden to stalk his prey. He would sit on a log and enjoy the sweet reward of summer: a juicy, ripe tomato, every bite sprinkled with a little salt. My father has shocked friends and guests by salting any melon that crossed his path, a skill acquired from his parents and grandparents while growing up in southern Virginia.

Joseph Day is the director of horticulture at Agecroft Hall, a museum in Richmond, Virginia. Previously he ran the historic gardens at George Washington’s estate, Mount Vernon, worked in the gardens of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and studied roses at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Joseph Day and ICE Chef-Instructor Robert Ramsey are lifelong friends who have been wilderness adventuring together for years. In this blog post, Chef Robert interviews Joseph about one of their favorite shared pastimes.

Back when she was a tween, ICE alum Tanya Edmunds (Culinary Arts ‘09, Culinary Management ‘09) took an interest in makeup. This being before the days of Pinterest and YouTube tutorials, her mom bought her makeup books filled with pages of application instructions. Tanya would spend hours in her room carefully studying the tutorials then replicating them on herself until she mastered each lesson. From the beginning, it was clear that she would be drawn toward creative, hands-on pursuits. Though she studied theatre at NYU, practical considerations and a knack for whipping up delicious home-cooked dinners led her to enroll at ICE.

Richard Olney’s book “Simple French Food” is one of my favorites. This exploration of “simple” food has a 40-page introduction explaining in detail what the author means by simple — clearly, simplicity can be complicated. The idea of the book — focusing on preparing simple foods very, very well — was made clear to me during a trip to France, years before I opened my restaurant Chanterelle.

Street food is a wonderful thing. Street food that serves a good cause (beyond satisfying your craving for falafel) — that’s even better. On Tuesday, April 18, ICE hosted the 10th annual STREETS Eats benefit for STREETS International, a non-profit organization that provides culinary and hospitality training to disadvantaged youth in Vietnam.