Maritza Garcia
 All great chefs have an inspiration. For Maritza Garcia, it was her grandmother, who taught her to bake a cake … from scratch.
“Baking a cake is a hard process if you don’t know what you’re doing. However, learning from my grandmother really helped me find my niche,” says Maritza, who has aspired to become a pastry chef since elementary school. Now, Maritza’s putting her baking skills to the test for more than just her family. She’s cooking dishes in the classroom and has applied that knowledge in a restaurant, Johnny Jambalaya’s Bayou Bistreaux in Thibodaux, where she prepared desserts and salads. “It [was] an awesome experience to work at Johnny Jambalaya’s because it made me realize that this is what I really want to do,” Martiza says. “I’ve always had a sweet tooth and would love to own my own bakery or work in the hotel industry.” Maritza says eclairs are her specialty but then again so are strawberry cakes and just about anything else that has sugar as its main ingredient. Maritza is also gaining experience by working as an advertising sales representative for the campus newspaper, The Nicholls Worth. She says the skills she’s learned for selling advertisements will help her in her career because she has learned good social skills, how to be persuasive and how to network with people. |
Working toward: a bachelor’s degree in culinary arts
Expected graduation date: Spring 2010
High school: Vandebilt Catholic High School
Hometown: Houma, La.
Nicholls involvement:
I’m an advertising sales representative for the campus newspaper, The Nicholls Worth, and I’m a former member of Delta Zeta Sorority and the National Panhellenic Council.
I chose to attend Nicholls because …
… it has the best culinary program in the state. (The John Folse Culinary Institute was the first public university in the nation to begin offering a four-year culinary arts degree.)
What I most enjoy about the John Folse Culinary Institute at Nicholls …
… is getting to cook every day and the awesome instructors. I’ve had to cook things I never could have imagined cooking. Sometimes we cook eight to 10 dishes per day. We started out with fresh chicken and learned how to fry and saute it. But I’d have to say dutchess potatoes is the weirdest dish I’ve had to prepare and one of the hardest.
In my spare time, I enjoy …
… hanging out with my friends, shopping, baking, fishing and hunting.
What I will remember most about Nicholls is …
… meeting wonderful people and all of the great professors who were very patient in teaching culinary classes.