Flathead Valley Community College has extended the application deadline for the fall 2011 culinary arts program to Aug. 29. 

Applications are available in the Admissions Office inside Blake Hall on the college’s Kalispell campus, online at www.fvcc.edu/culinaryarts, or by calling 871-2793.

The culinary arts program provides students with entry-level skills in the culinary arts industry. 

Students in the program learn basic to advanced technical skills in food preparation and service and management skills necessary to successfully perform within the food-service industry. 

Career opportunities include but are not limited to food retail, wholesale and sales; food styling, photography and writing; restaurant and event catering; recipe tasting; bar and beverage management; and working as personal or professional chefs or nutritionists. 

Potential employers include hotels, restaurants, grade schools, college campuses, celebrities, cruise ships, large corporations, resorts and health care and assisted living facilities, among others. 

The program is led by Instructor Hillary Ginepra, who joined the college faculty in 2005. 

Before coming to FVCC, she taught for prestigious culinary institutions including the Calphalon Culinary Center in Chicago, the New England Culinary Institute in Vermont and the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago. 

Outside of teaching, she operated her own catering and personal chef business for private clients and yachts in the World Trade Center Marina in New York City and worked with a team of caterers for famous clients including Charlie Trotter and Oprah Winfrey. 

Ginepra was trained at New York’s Natural Gourmet Cooking School, the only chef training program in the United States focused on wellness through the use of whole foods.

Joining Ginepra is Chef Howard Karp, who began teaching at FVCC in 2008 and brought nearly 50 years of culinary industry experience to the college. 

A former director of food and beverage operations at the famed Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City, Karp trained at three five-star hotels in Switzerland before teaching at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, Calif., and the Western Culinary Institute in Portland, Ore. 

Karp’s clients have included U.S. presidents, Britain’s Prince Andrew, foreign dignitaries and Super Bowl commissioners.

For more information, call Ginepra at 871-2793 or visit www.fvcc.edu/culinaryarts.