STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Winston Churchill once said, “My ideal of a good dinner is to discuss good food, and, after this good food has been disused, to discuss a good topic—with myself the chief conversationalist.”

If Churchill had appeared as guest at this week’s Winston Churchill Dinner, Ron would have ensured that the good topic be the professional chefs program at the Sun Valley Culinary Institute.

“We have two missions,” he told those attending the Winston Churchill Dinner: “Education and classes for food enthusiasts.”

One of the students who just graduated from the Culinary Institute’s second year of chef training, he said, was 17 when she started—too young to live in a Sun Valley dorm.

All seven of those who graduated were highly employable when they graduated after spending 20 weeks learning how to braise, debone chickens and more at the Culinary Institute and spending another 20 weeks of working in restaurants during Sun Valley’s busy winter and summer seasons.

Their poise and confidence had grown immensely over the year, Greenspan said.

The Sun Valley Culinary Institute just began its third year of training in the culinary arts.