Lifestyle
By: Ashley Caudill
East Windsor resident Anne Lumberger was recently named Chef of the Year, but her initial foray into the culinary world had little to do with awards and accolades.
"I wanted to learn how to make a really good pie crust," said Ms. Lumberger, 53, who lives on Geraldine Road with her husband, David, a telecommunications manager at CitiGroup, and their three cats. Ms. Lumberger began taking baking classes at Mercer County Community College in 1996 in order to learn new skills and relieve stress.
The Chef of the Year award was presented to Ms. Lumberger on April 25 at the Doral Forrestal Conference Center & Spa in Princeton. She was selected by her peers, fellow chefs in the American Culinary Federation Professional Chefs Guild of Central New Jersey.
"I’m pretty good (at baking)," Ms. Lumberger conceded, but said that the award is not based on cooking abilities, but on an individual’s support of the guild and participation in volunteer activities in the culinary field.
Rolling in the dough
Ms. Lumberger enjoyed her classes and said "by the second class I knew I really wanted to do something with it." She decided if she was able to acquire all the necessary skills and perform them well that she would retire at age 50. Ms. Lumberger did not have to wait until she was 50 to retire. In 1998, after working as a project manager at AT&T for 28 years, Ms. Lumberger was able to take advantage of the company’s early retirement program.
"It afforded me the opportunity to start investigating my new career," she said.
Ms. Lumberger continued taking classes at MCCC. By 2001 she had earned certificates in professional cooking and professional baking. She earned a baking and pastry arts diploma from The Institute of Culinary Education in New York.
A few times Ms. Lumberger served as a substitute teacher for baking classes at Mercer County Community College and also taught at the Sypeck Center of the Mercer County Technical School in Pennington. This year she began teaching at MCCC and taught two Introduction to Baking classes during the spring 2004 semester.
Baking basics
"It’s nice to go back to where I started," says Ms. Lumberger of her classes, in which she teaches her students to bake desserts, pastries and other baked goods. The introductory baking classes provide instruction on baking formulas, manual skills, and the safe and sanitary use of equipment and supplies.
Ms. Lumberger has worked in bakeries in Bordentown and Newtown, Pa., and currently bakes for Princeton University students at the Colonial Club, an eating club on Prospect Avenue in Princeton.
During the school year, Ms. Lumberger prepares pastries and baked goods for about 200 students five days a week, three meals a day. Her breakfast menu includes muffins, scones and coffeecakes. For lunch and dinner she makes desserts such as brownies, cookies and pies her favorite dessert, which she describes as "an all-American, really nice, homey type of dessert."
She said that aside from making a cake in the shape of the Colonial Club’s logo (a complex design constructed of two C’s and stars), the most challenging thing about her work is baking for not only the regular students, but also their guests when the club hosts parties and special events. Her biggest challenge on those occasions is "to make sure I can have 450 desserts done on time, plated, and not miss a beat."
Kitchen care
In addition to teaching at MCCC and baking at Princeton University, Ms. Lumberger participates in volunteer activities. At the Eden Institute a Princeton-based nonprofit center which provides services to children and adults with autism Ms. Lumberger helps schedule chefs for their summer camp program in Connecticut and cooks at the summer camp. She also participates in Eden Evening on the Town, an annual fund-raising dinner for the institute which will be held this year on Sept. 12.
Ms. Lumberger noted that she volunteers "because it’s the right thing to do. It’s important to give back and not enough people do it."
Her further volunteer efforts include serving as a judge for high school cooking competitions at the Sypeck Center and volunteering at Childhood Hunger Day, an annual Chefs Guild event to teach inner-city children about nutrition.
Currently she is keeping busy as a chef, teacher and volunteer and estimates that she works at least 40 hours a week. As for the future, she just wants to continue on her current path.
"I’m having a really great time doing this," she said. "I wouldn’t change anything except for to add a few more hours to the day."
And as for that perfect pie crust she longed to master?
"Patience and refrigeration," Ms. Lumber said, and noted it’s important to use cool ingredients and refrigerate the dough.