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Food as Art, Business & Wellness
Brightwater approaches food as art, food as wellness, and food as business to offer an entirely unique approach to the culinary arts. At the core of Brightwater's programs, you are equipped with artisanal cooking methods as well as an understanding of food's impact on culture, economy and wellness. As a Brightwater student, you are encouraged to experience food in a whole new way, activating flavors and crafting dishes that are local, refined and innovative. Learn how to traverse the journey of food in a way that best suits your interests, talents and goals, from mastering the art of confections to whole-animal butchery.
Artisanal Food | Beverage Arts | Baking & Pastry | Culinary Arts
Food as Art
As a department of NorthWest Arkansas Community College (NWACC), Brightwater is America's first regional cooking school. Its focus is hyper-localized and holistic, traversing the entire food experience from crop to cuisine. Infused with artisanal methods like butchery and distillery, Brightwater's programming offers education and experience previously only acquired through apprenticeship. It is the first culinary school to integrate a food-systems approach and inquiry-based learning to cooking, local farming, sustainability, and community development. Brightwater offers students a dynamic educational experience in its programs by delivering a combination of technical skills, broad industry knowledge, and specialty cultural exposure.
Food as Business
Brightwater is a hub of food activity, events, and business for Northwest Arkansas. Part of Brightwater's mission is to serve and strengthen the community. The school aims to accomplish this by developing future culinarians, fostering business connections, offering community classes, and by being a leading voice in trends affecting the food system.
Brightwater uniquely engages the community with accessible programming and ongoing local food experiences. The school also directly employs the region's abundant local foods with hands-on teaching that focuses on seasonality and preservation techniques such as smoking, brining or curing. While restaurants are a common job destination, students are encouraged to consider additional avenues such as food science, marketing, creative arts, nutrition and craft and artisanal production.
Food Entrepreneurship
Food entrepreneurs, like all business people, need access to continuous learning materials, meaningful working connections within a purpose-driven peer community that is focused on growing their expertise, their businesses and the quality of their offerings, and true mentors who are able to share their insights to accelerate the progress of their mentees. Brightwater is focused on delivering these critical resources to culinarians and food entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurship provides basic business planning for the culinary entrepreneur to support those interested in pursuing a practical application of food-based business without taking a full schedule of business and entrepreneur courses. Students are coming to culinary school with an interest in starting their own businesses. The new food culture and the Cottage Food Act of 2010 provides additional opportunities for food entrepreneurism. Artisanal skills such as cheese making, artisanal bread baking, charcuterie, fermentation, curing, and canning are at the forefront of the new food movement.
Food System
The supermarket has become the last stop in an increasingly complex global food system, spurring a growing movement to re-regionalize the food system. As a Brightwater student, you'll examine economic, social, demographic, environmental and ethical issues that currently shape our systems of food production, distribution and consumption. This includes learning how food is grown, processed, transported and distributed, and reviewing policies that shape how those foods are consumed.
You'll also explore how animals and plants are raised for food, as well as how food labels and food claims are made on packages and in advertising. Trace a variety of food products and take an in-depth look at environmental impacts, animal welfare, human health and labor practices that make up the food system, and learn to pay attention to the effects of international trade and immigration policies and explore the concept of food sovereignty in the United States and around the world.
Professional Development
>Brightwater provides learning opportunities for professional culinarians and the general public. From enthusiast courses to custom-designed training for chefs, companies and personnel, Brightwater has the facility and professional staff to help you reach your goals. The school offers ideation sessions, corporate team building activities and dinners, and leading edge exposure to the newest equipment, ingredients and techniques. Brightwater also has five kitchens, six classrooms, and a butchery and demonstration theater that can be rented for private events, parties, and training.
Food as Wellness
Brightwater is the first department of a community college to offer a systems-based approach to culinary training. Wellness encompasses sustainable farming practices, healthy community relationships, and the well-being of individuals through local food. To that end, Brightwater promotes a variety of activities and courses of study in culinary nutrition, applied farming, seasonal cooking and whole-animal butchery. Wellness involves daily practice and understanding the culinarian's impact on the food system, not merely adhering to a prescriptive checklist of "dos and don'ts".
Culinary Nutrition
Brightwater approaches food as medicine, starting with the basic principles of nutrition, including their application to food preparation, menu planning and a healthy lifestyle. Brightwater provides training for culinary and nursing students, the general public and medical professionals. The key to training is a hands-on discovery of nutritional science through the daily preparation, tasting and analysis of dishes. Brightwater provides students with a knowledge base of diet, lifestyle, nutrition and how they relate to well-being and disease. All degree-seeking students are required to take culinary nutrition. Brightwater also offers nutritional training to the public as part of community engagement and outreach. Finally, continuing medical education (CME) is available to doctors, nurses and other medical professionals following a similar interactive and participatory approach.
Attention is also given to providing nutritionally-balanced and attractive meals. Menu planning using sound nutritional guidelines is stressed. The concept of creating menus while focusing on food allergies, intolerances, preferences and restrictions is also introduced. Brightwater employs a food-first perspective with an eye toward the practical aspects of what customers and patients face day-to-day when trying to make substantive change in their lives. The focus is on teaching about food: how to cook, what to eat, and how to help people improve diets and thereby, health.
Garden
Brightwater has partnered with local farms to have a greenhouse on our campus. Through this collaboration, students are able to see the value of their finished product, from seed to plate and from seed to community. Brightwater's goal is to grow you into a mindful chef that recognizes ingredients based on seasonality and geographic region. Throughout your time at Brightwater, you will continually interact with the school garden, giving you a holistic perspective on food.
As a Brightwater student, you will learn about seasonality through hands-on work at the Brightwater garden and greenhouse as well as visits to farms from small, diversified operations to large scale. The horticulture program and gardens on the main campus of NWACC provide additional opportunities for vegetable and fruit exploration. You'll learn about soil health and its connection to growing food. You'll get your hands dirty helping in the on-campus garden and heated greenhouse, enabling season extension opportunities for a year-round field-to-plate curriculum. There are also plans to add hydroponics, aeroponics and aquaponics systems for use in Bentonville.
Seasonal
Northwest Arkansas enjoys four mild seasons throughout the year, providing a tremendous opportunity for multiple growing seasons. The emphasis on food and farming include an applied farming class through farm and garden partners and a seasonal cooking class utilizing fresh produce. Hoop houses and a heated greenhouse allow for growing product beyond the traditional seasons.
Food Waste
Brightwater is committed to training students and the community to reduce food waste and recover edible food. The school embraces a holistic approach to food waste. Brightwater does not simply focus on reducing food waste numerically, but also on educating to create a culture of respect and care. In the kitchen, instructors teach awareness of how each ingredient can be used in its totality. Prepared foods will be donated to local charities. You will learn new techniques to incorporate each part of the ingredient into your dish, an unusable scraps are used for Brightwater's on-site garden's compost.