Re-engaging with a lifelong passion encourages dreaming about the future
On a Thursday morning in April, about a dozen Culinary Arts students in white jackets and blue caps buzz about a kitchen in a NAIT campus cafeteria. They’re doing it all: taking orders, smashing burgers, flipping sandwiches, dunking fries, plating combos. Demand is high; a line of customers grows steadily longer.
It’s not unusual for students to run quick-serve on campus, but this time is different. For one thing, it’s a burger pop-up being managed by Sean O’Connor (Culinary Arts ’06), executive chef and partner at Fox Burger, a highly regarded casual diner with spots in Highlands, Westmount and Leduc, as well as a food truck. He’s returned temporarily to campus to deliver a crash course in short-order cooking, and to show, by virtue of his own success, that the goals students may have are achievable.
In some cases, so are their dreams.
That’s the other reason this pop-up stands out: It’s being attended by Owynn Lopatynski, a 14-year-old student from Edmonton’s Jan Reimer School. What he lacks in age he makes up for in enthusiasm and, in no small measure, gratitude.
Lopatynski is recovering from complications caused by Crohn’s disease and is healthier than he has been in months. Not long ago, he wouldn’t have been able to eat a burger, let alone cook one in a restaurant setting. But today, thanks to a partnership between the wish-granting Alberta Dreams Foundation and NAIT, he has the chance to do both.
A priceless experience
“One of the parts of my dream was to do stuff related to cooking, so I was invited to this session,” says Lopatynski. “It’s a life skill and one of my passions.”
When Lopatynski was younger, his mom Sheena (Medical Radiologic Technology ’02) remembers him glued to food television on a Saturday morning instead of cartoons. Comfort-food aficionado Guy Fieri was among Lopatynski’s favourites.
It’s only recently that Lopatynski has been able to begin fully reconnecting with that passion. When he was 12, the stomach aches began. “Within a few months he ended up quite ill,” says Sheena. Crohn’s is an auto-immune, inflammatory bowel disease, and it riddled Lopatynski's lower digestive tract with ulcers.
Three surgeries inside of 12 months saw him become little more than “a visitor” at school, says his mom, and limited to a bland diet.
“For a foodie not to be able to eat all the foods he wanted for a couple of years, this has been amazing,” she says.
“He’s able to experience those things again. That’s where the love of food and this dream-come-true go together.”
The connection came about when Culinary Arts instructor Harjeet Mehdwan met Alberta Dreams program manager and medical liaison Alecia Vleeming at an event at the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, where Mehdwan leads the Edmonton chapter.
Vleeming shared that Lopatynski’s parents had reached out to the organization. Mehdwan promised to look into possibilities.
He soon saw the upcoming pop-up as the answer.
“Owynn’s dream was to cook with Guy Fieri,” he says. “We had this event coming up with Sean O’Connor – our own Guy Fieri in Edmonton.”
“Everything aligned and was in place.” What’s more, Mehdwan adds, “Chef O’Connor was more than happy to assist.”
For Vleeming, it was the perfect way for Alberta Dreams to grant a unique wish. “Without NAIT, we wouldn’t have been able to create such a unique experience,” she says. “You can’t buy this.”
Making better memories
"It was a great experience with Owynn," says O'Connor. "For me to be able to encourage somebody in the industry ... by showing him a positive example, that's all I wanted to do."
In addition to introducing Lopatynski to the art of short-order cooking, the chef offered tips on improving knife skills as they cubed beef for grinding, had the Fox kitchen manager he'd brought along share his own experiences, and emphasized the changing nature of the industry, positioning hotheaded chefs as outliers in kitchens that, on the whole, endeavour to be inclusive and welcoming.
"I was honoured to have the opportunity to do this," says O'Connor. "I hope that he got a little bit of inspiration."
Mehdwan would love to see Lopatynski back as a student one day but, if not, he knows that pop-up was special nevertheless. “If it sparked an interest, cooking is a good life skill to have, even if you don’t want to become a chef,” says the instructor.
Lopatynski would agree. “It makes me feel good about myself when I get to feed other people,” he says.
He’s happy to be better able to do that (to help, he was also given a knife from Knifeware and a chef’s jacket from Shop at NAIT), even if he ultimately decides to pursue his competing passions of math and engineering. What matters most is that Lopatynski is in a position again to dream about the future – and maybe that he had the chance to make up for lost time.
What matters most is that Lopatynski is in a position again to dream about the future.
“This is one of those things that he will always look back on as positive,” says Sheena.
She knows her son will continue to deal with his condition, but she sees the day at NAIT as having helped to counter difficult memories, and reward his perseverance and bravery.
Mostly, it “just let him be a kid,” Sheena says, “and do what he likes to do.”
The fine art of short-order cooking
After seening the recent run of alumni-chef teaching events at NAIT, Fox Burger's Sean O'Connor (Culinary Arts ’06) reached out to program heads about broadening the focus from fine dining to include his specialty, high-quality short order.
"It's not just [about] the food, it's also how we operate and work the line," says O'Connor. "I thought that would be beneficial and different for the students."
Staff agreed, making the event a first for the polytechnic as the chef and two cohorts of students took over the One World outlet in the Centre for Applied Technology for four days in April.
It went smoothly, says O'Connor, with students adapting quickly to the pressure-cooker environment, asking questions and learning new techniques. Some of the young cooks even lined up summer jobs at Fox.
But the best indicator of success may have come from the customers. For those four days, O'Connor says, "it was incredibly busy."