Aces of Trades: Jeff Cecil went from catering for music acts to teaching LHS students

LANCASTER − Jeff Cecil's job is to prepare the chefs of the future.

Cecil is the Lancaster City Schools culinary arts instructor who teaches at the Stanbery Career Center. He started in December 2021.

"I'm just the ringleader, really," Cecil said. "We are a unique program within the state. Compared to other culinary programs, a lot of them have restaurants that the students operate. We don't have a restaurant yet. I think that's in the plans for the new facility (new high school). So we focus on catering a lot, and that's unique."

Cecil is a Louisville native who once catered for music acts like Jimmy Buffett, Metallica, Elton John, Kenny Chesney, George Strait and the Trans Siberian Orchestra.

He said culinary class is more than just cooking food.

"There's a good amount of classwork involved," Cecil said. "Especially when it comes to recipe conversions and mathematics. People don't realize all the math that's involved in culinary arts. Every single time you go into the kitchen to cook something you're looking at a recipe, which is all fractions, maybe, and measurement conversions. So there's a lot of math involved."

Cecil said there is also a lot writing involved in his class, specifically when the students write menus for three-course meals.

Cecil went to culinary school right after high school.

"I knew nothing," he said. "I remember hearing a chef talk about caramelized onions, and me thinking that sounded pretty gross. I literally knew nothing. So I needed that culinary school because it helped me get ahead."

Cecil moved to the Cleveland area in 1999 and worked in restaurants there before getting a job in catering and loving it. That led to his backstage catering in entertainment.

"We had a mobile kitchen and we traveled with different bands and did their catering across the country," Cecil said. "It was interesting, that's for sure. Imagine a kitchen in a trailer bouncing down the highway. You open up your refrigerators in the morning and the shelves have all collapsed on top of each other."

Away from work, Cecil visits family in Kentucky and enjoys gardening.

jbarron@gannett.com

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Twitter/X: @JeffDBarron