It's no secret that food is a more present and powerful part of popular culture than ever before, and the culinary industry is booming in turn. Since the days of Julia Child, food television has played an increasing role in our growing interest in food, with the Food Network leading the charge in more recent years.

Food Start Up Help, founded by four colleagues at ICE, is an organization that helps budding entrepreneurs launch small food businesses. Today, we’d like to share the success story of one of our clients, ICE Pastry & Baking alum and Chef/Owner of The Savory Pie Guy, Zeke Mandel.

It's said that those who can't, teach. But when it comes to cooking, Spice Market's Executive Chef Anthony Ricco is a master at both.

On the path to becoming one of the nation’s authorities on Pastry & Baking Arts, Chef Michelle Tampakis has taken some fascinating and unexpected turns. Born in the Bronx, Tampakis grew up in the New York City suburb of Teaneck, NJ. She took and interest in the kitchen at a young age, with family as her inspiration. Says Tampakis, “My dad would cook a lot while I was growing up, and he always encouraged me to get into cooking.”

This fall, ICE's Center for Advanced Pastry Studies (CAPS) is thrilled to present a 3-day advanced sugar decoration workshop (Sept 16-18) with Chef Ewald Notter. Renowned as a competitor and teacher, Notter has won numerous awards, including National and World Pastry Team Champion and Pastry Chef of the Year. In 2001, he won the gold medal with the US Team at the Coupe du Monde in Lyon, France, receiving the highest score ever recorded in sugar work.

The pre-season: that time of year when football fans anxiously await the plays that will define their season and daydream about grill-fired pre-game feasts. With that in mind, the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) and the New York Jets are proud to announce a new partnership: the official New York Jets Cooking School – Tailgating Division.

Purchasing tortillas makes home-made chips a snap to prepare—we just provide the flavoring for the blank canvas. Dukkah is a traditional Egyptian condiment found on kitchen tables throughout the Middle East. It’s sprinkled on just about everything and used as a dip when mixed with yogurt. Like other cultural dishes, there are as many variations of dukkah as there are cooks who make it. This version is more global than the Egyptian original, showcasing an array of nuts and seeds from around the world.

Aarón Sánchez, co-star of two Food Network hit series Chopped and Heat Seekers, and host of FOX Life’s #1 rated series Aarón Loves New York, never planned to become a celebrity chef. Though it is no surprise that he landed in the field, given he was born into culinary royalty, being the son of one of New York’s most celebrated Mexican chefs, Zarela Martinez.

Since graduating from ICE’s Culinary Arts program in 2009, Kristen’s journey into food media led to enrolling in NYU’s Food Studies program, a subsequent stint at Martha Stewart, and work and a writer and recipe tester for Saveur Magazine and The Wall Street Journal. Kristen then got involved with the development and launch of Food52, a food community that encourages home cooks to submit recipes, exchange tips and share food knowledge. Thanks to a recent Recreational Cooking class at ICE lead by Chef Kristen, I learned a few fun ways to turn simple ingredients into genius recipes.

As author Christopher Hitchens once said, “Everybody has a book inside them.” When it comes to those in the culinary world, that book needs to come out, and when it does it’s usually in the form of a cookbook.