The Associate of Applied Science in Culinary Arts at TJC prepares students for entry-level restaurant management positions. Students learn culinary and baking skills as well as management theories, practices and strategies. Much of their time is spent working in a culinary arts lab learning traditional, current, American and international cooking techniques as well as inventory management and purchasing.

Since first kneading dough with her grandmother as a young girl, Kortney McMillian found a love language in cooking.

“My grandmother is definitely my inspiration into the culinary world,” McMillian said. “I loved being in the kitchen with her. It was just a sense of connection, and then I saw that she cooked Sunday lunch for us, so that was a way for all of our family to be together.”

Her favorite things to make with her grandmother were homemade Fig Newtons and birthday cakes.

“I always enjoyed being in the kitchen with her… but I think the lesson that she taught me without even realizing it was just about working on cleanliness,” McMillian said. “My grandma was a little messy sometimes so I’d always have to clean up behind her.”

Her grandmother passed in 2010 but McMillian keeps the memories of her close by.

“I like to call her my ‘kitchen angel’ so she’s always with me cooking,” she said. “I feel like she’s always around and with me whenever I’m baking and doing different things.”

After she graduated from high school, McMillian attended a local culinary culinary program at a technical school in Lake Charles, Louisiana. She enrolled, then went through that program learning about savory dishes and then went back and did the baking concentration and graduated in 2017.

“There’s a lot of components to becoming a chef,” she said. “Like your stature and the kind of voice that you have. It’s the level of sanitation. It’s having the passion and the drive, which is a lot.”

Many chefs are on their feet between six to eight hours a day, most of the time with no break in between.

“It’s definitely dedication and hard work,” McMillian said. “You have to be up and ready, have recipes written out, be prepared and then also it comes down to the execution. Just really understanding the processes that you’re going through, especially with baking or even with cooking and having the finesse.”

In her third year, McMillian currently works as an adjunct professor at Tyler Junior College (TJC) in the Culinary Arts Department, where she teaches the fundamentals of baking — which includes how to make bread, cookies, ice cream and pies. She also teaches a lecture class on nutrition for foodservice professionals.

“It’s basically going through teaching them what foods have different vitamins, how they can help us… diet-wise,” she said. “Then also all the vitamins that we need or what we lack in our American diet, which a lot of it’s very processed foods and has a lot of carbohydrates but also making everyone understand that carbohydrates actually give us a lot of energy and that’s something some people cut out for a diet. So, I want to make sure people understand what nutrition entails in our cooking.”

McMillion prides herself in her specialty — baking and pastries.

“I also teach breads and rolls,” she said. “We make sourdough… a lot of different breads. It’s very dangerous… as I do love bread!”

She also teaches advanced pastry shops.

“We get into different plated desserts, molten lava cakes, Danish dough… and just doing a lot of different higher quality products,” McMillian said.

Her passion and expertise recently awarded her Pastry Chef of the Year by the East Texas Chapter of the Texas Chefs Association.

“I’m truly honored and just very blessed to be given such a title like that,” she said. “Especially not being a Texas chef, originally born and raised in Southwest Louisiana… it’s truly getting that honor and award, by being voted on by my peers in our East Texas chapter is just, it’s awesome.”

Larry Matson, professor and director of the Tyler Junior College Culinary Arts program, shares the sentiment.

“It’s your peers recognizing the quality of work that you do… and that’s what makes it so meaningful,” he said. “Especially as young as she is, for more established chefs to say you’re doing a great job, it’s great.”

McMillian was selected for the award by a vote of chapter members. Following her win, she can go on to compete at the state level for the Pastry Chef Award, next year.

Matson appreciates the passion and the drive that McMillian has for what she does, setting an example for her students, as well as the culinary arts program.

“She loves cooking,” he said. “It’s the type of passion that she has and it’s not every day you run across people like that. She’s enthusiastic. She’s open to criticism. She’s open to learning things. She’s a great example to the students.”

McMillian is also a member of the American Culinary Federation, the largest chefs’ organization in the country.

If you don’t know from your whisk to your measuring spoon but you aspire to be a chef, McMillian advises diving into it, from watching videos online to reaching out to someone in the community.

“Knowledge can come from different areas, such as finding a book or maybe reaching out to a culinary department or a program to see about getting involved if that’s the method that you want to go,” she said. “But definitely be willing to put in some hard earned hours to get the experience that you need.”

But above all, passion is the most important ingredient.

“You’re on your feet all day, sometimes the days are a little mundane and you’re just doing the same tasks over and over,” Matson said. “But people like Kortney, who have passion and drive are what makes for a good chef… she works part time at a bakery and she’s teaching, it really shows how much she loves what she does.”

“TJC has such an amazing program and Chef Matson is just amazing,” McMillian said. “He’s very humble and has a lot of knowledge. I’ve definitely learned from different people at TJC, even if it’s not in the culinary arts, I’ve learned how to be a better chef and a better teacher. So I am very appreciative of the college and the community as well.”

For more information about the Culinary Arts program, visit TJC.edu/Culinary.