A-B Tech Graduate Tastes and Travels On "Gastronomic Tours" Around The World

A-B Tech Culinary and Hotel and Restaurant Management graduate TJ Robinson shows off his cooking skills at the Biltmore Estate Winery. Photo courtesy of Biltmore Estate

Renowned food and wine critic David Rosengarten could have chosen any number of chefs to work alongside. He chose "Tj" Robinson, 1999 graduate of A-B Tech's Culinary and Hotel and Restaurant Management programs.

A frequent guest on the Today show and one of the restaurant world's leading authorities on food and wine, Rosengarten travels internationally to discover native spices, allay bulgar caviar fears and plant little-known palate pleasers in the minds of his followers. While visiting the Biltmore Estate three years ago, he met Tj, who landed a job there as winery chef before he even graduated from A-B Tech.

Rosengarten was impressed with Tj's immense cooking talent, his ability to juxtapose different flavors as well as his "platform of skills," ranging from accounting and law to business, many contrived from his educational experiences through A-B Tech.

Now the hub of operations, Tj is the chef behind the scenes of Rosengarten's Today show appearances, a partner in several spin-off ventures and a rising star on New York's private dining scene. He excels at extracting flavors from foods and insists on ingredients that are the best, the freshest and the most native, serving them with a strong dash of Southern sass. He possesses an impeccable palate, an insatiable appetite and a rich cache of stories from his travels around the world. "Work" for Tj is tasting and traveling extensively in search of "food and wines that make me swoon," Rosengarten's famed slogan. He usually spends more time on planes than in cars, as Rosengarten won't hesitate to send Tj on a "gastronomic tour" to France to sample Beaujolais, Italy for a prosciutto (ham) tasting or even the South for BBQ. Name a country and Tj has probably been flown there to "work."

He is probably sitting in his Manhattan apartment right now - where he regularly charms his guests with multi-course dinners - sampling 30 of the world's finest chocolates flown in by "foodies" across continents hoping Rosengarten and his premier chef will mention their product.

Visiting the Apollo Flame restaurant on Hendersonville Road during the Thanksgiving holidays, Tj jokes he is looking for a better job. "It's pretty spectacular. I've had the opportunity to see the world. I've been to a lot of great countries and visited a lot of wonderful hotels and restaurants. They do try to take very good care of you so you'll send your readers and viewers to them."

Tj was weaned on southern food and the fruits and vegetables from his grandfather's garden in Black Mountain and later seduced by fine European food during his travels. Today, Tj's own sense of culinary style, polished at the hand of his mentor, Rosengarten, earned him dining privileges with the world's leading culinary superstars, like Mario, Emeril, Bobby Flay, Julia Child, Chef Jacques Pepin (famed American-French chef), Chef Paul Bocuse (the grandfather of French cuisine), and Shirley Corriher (food scientist extraordinaire). Sprinkled with the socially important, dinners with the stars of Hollywood - Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Jordan and Robert De Niro to name a few - are never far behind.

Still, the 25-year-old young man is well grounded by his A-B Tech roots and largely diverse extended Oteen family. "People (like chefs from famous French culinary schools) ask me all the time, 'Where did you go to school?' I tell them, an amazing, wonderfully undiscovered school in Asheville, North Carolina called A-B Tech.'" Besides the Apollo Flame, where does Tj go to eat when he visits Asheville? "When I come home, I don't want to go out and eat. I want to eat real Southern food. I want to eat homegrown tomatoes from the garden. I want my grandmother to make her amazing cornbread," Tj said.

His best travel experience? "Asheville," he responds without pause. "I love going home."

For more information about Rosengarten's television shows, newsletter, cookbooks or "gastronomic tours," visit www.davidrosengarten.com.Return to top

A-B Tech Small Business Center Helps Man Build A Dream

Small Business Center Director Harry Ponder (left) and Gerald Rinehart at the Small Business Center on the Enka Site where they met for the first time.

Rinehart Racing owner Gerald Rinehart personifies everything the Enka campus represents.

Capitalistic Ventures. Free Enterprise. Success.

A welder most of his life, Rinehart, 42, stepped into the Small Business Center Director Harry Ponder's office a few years ago with little more than an idea to design and build headers for race cars. Today, he is a household name on the NASCAR circuit. Rinehart has designed exhaust systems that dramatically improve a racecar's performance.

"I have built exhaust systems for every (NASCAR) team out there and some that aren't there anymore," Rinehart said. "Now, I've pretty much narrowed it down to Dale Earnhardt Inc., Roush Racing and Richard Childress Racing."

It wasn't long ago that Ponder helped Rinehart formulate a business plan, interview, prepare contracts and hone bargaining skills among other business advice.

Rinehart has spent so much time there, he actually says "we" when he speaks of the business programs the Enka campus offers. He was even there on the fated day of Sept. 11. "Nine eleven we were interviewing for welding positions right here," Rinehart said, adding, "Harry and Jo Ann (Gipe) have literally carried me through a lot of situations."

When Rinehart's newest design to build high-performance exhaust systems for Harley Davidson motorcycles was turned down at their home office, Ponder advised him to pursue a manufacturing lead instead, according to Rinehart and Ponder. "I called BUB Enterprises (leading manufacturer for Harley Davidson motorcycle parts) and told them I could make more horsepower than anyone in the industry," Rinehart said, adding BUB referred him to Lemans which owns Drag Specialties, the world's largest retailers of Harley Davidson motorcycle parts, where Ponder helped him at the negotiations table. "Making a business run, I didn't have the closest idea. I learned from Harry."

Rinehart signed a contract with Lemans and earlier this year, BUB produced 2,600 sets (already sold) in the first 60 days with no advertising, Rinehart said.

What's next for Rinehart? "I've got some new things up my sleeve."

The hardest part of his business ventures he says, however, is finding the niche. "Ninety percent of the time I try something new, it falls on its face. That 10 percent is what I make my living on," Rinehart said.

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Tech Talk is published for employees of Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College by the College Relations Division.

Executive Editor: Mona Cornwell Managing Editor: Jodi Ford Send submissions to Mona Cornwell, director of communications, at mcornwell@abtech.edu Publication of the next issue is scheduled Feb 1. The deadline for submissions is Jan. 17.

This edition of Tech Talk was printed January 2002. 125 copies were printed. Equal Opportunity Educational Institution Return to top