Culinary
Culinary
Snow Days, Pastry Buffets & New Goals: Zoé Rodgers’ France Adventure
Zoé Rodgers’ JWU journey has taken her from her home in Nassau, the Bahamas, to JWU’s Charlotte Campus and all the way to Yssingeaux, France to study at the École Nationale Supérieure de Pâtisserie (ENSP). For Rodgers, a Baking & Pastry Arts and Food & Beverage Entrepreneurship junior, taking these big leaps helped her grow in the kitchen: “I really became 10 times more passionate about what I want to do.”
Rodgers’ love of cooking was sparked by her seventh grade Home Economics class. Crucially, that’s also where she first learned about JWU.
“I started doing my research and I knew that JWU was the school I wanted to go to.”
Discovering Kitchen Creativity & JWU
Rodgers’ Home Economics class was split into two parts: Cooking or clothing and textiles. She chose to do both: “I was really good at sewing. But I also loved being in the kitchen. And I realized that over time, especially if I wanted to stay [in the Bahamas], that I would not necessarily be successful unless I moved somewhere else.”
She decided to take cooking seriously, and she quickly became a standout in her class. Her teacher asked her if she had thought of any colleges. “That’s when she told me about Johnson & Wales — some of her senior students applied there. I talked to a couple of them who had taken the summer programs; they were able to see the labs and kitchens, and they told me, ‘I think you should do it.’ I started doing my research and I knew that JWU was the school I wanted to go to.”
Zoé Rodgers '27 (second from left) with the JWU crew in front of ENSP.
Making the Transition to Charlotte
Because it’s so expensive to fly from the Bahamas to the United States, Rodgers attended a virtual Accepted Students Day and did not arrive in Charlotte until Orientation. But she was determined to acclimate quickly, and the campus charmed her right away.
“I liked that the campus was small, because I went to a small high school,” Rodgers explained. “It was also really peaceful, quiet and gorgeous.”
Describing herself as “pretty social,” Rodgers made friends quickly, even meeting her suitemate, a fellow Bahamian, through a mutual friend from back home.
As Rodgers was learning about new techniques and flavor pairings during the whirlwind of her first labs, one of her chefs mentioned the ENSP study abroad program. Her friend Kayden Uzzle (also a Baking & Pastry Arts major) suggested they go together. “So that night we gathered our information and made sure we were ready to apply. And our application was in as soon as it opened.” Next stop: France!
‘You Wake Up & Hear the Sheep’
Rodgers’ ENSP adventure began in late January. Used to relatively urban environments, she found ENSP’s secluded location “very, very different” to get used to. “There were trees and mountains everywhere,” explained Rodgers. “It was very, very quiet. You wake up and you hear sheep.”
Yssingeaux is a small village nestled in the mountainous Auvergne-Rhône Alpes region, roughly 70 miles from Lyons.
When not in labs, Rodgers and her friends explored the historic town and quickly discovered the farmers’ markets, restaurants and shops. “We walked every single place that we wanted to go. One day, we pretty much walked the whole city. And one thing I realized is that all the roads connect to the city center, so you could pretty much never get lost.”
ENSP is housed in a traditional château on the edge of town, but inside its formal exterior is a hive of activity — 12 busy kitchen labs, a lecture hall, a 100-seat dining room and student accommodations.
Rodgers stayed in the château for the first few weeks of classes, then moved into the student apartments on campus. Although the JWU group — which included Providence and Charlotte students — was split into two for labs, by the end of the trip, they got to know one another really well.
Pastry Time!
ENSP production labs ran Monday through Thursday, starting at 5:50am sharp. “They were a lot stricter when it came to discipline and kitchen etiquette,” noted Rodgers. “You were not allowed in the lab if you were more than 5 minutes late.” But classes were surprisingly relaxed in other ways. For example, explained Rogers, “we didn’t get graded on day-to-day production. And every class was very hands-on. Because the class was so small — nine of us — the chefs were very attentive. They wanted us to ask questions, and they always over-explained.”
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Rodgers always brought a notebook to class to write down all the explanations and advice from the chefs. “Instead of doing a lot of independent study outside of the lab, you got most of your knowledge in the lab without having to do too much theory. You got a lot of little nuggets that will help you.”
If there was extra time, the chefs allowed students to work on anything they needed to practice. “They extended that grace, and their advice. And if they saw you struggling, they were right there at your beck and call.”
Labs covered all kinds of pastries, entremets, confections and chocolates. Classes were structured so that students cumulatively built upon the previous week’s lessons. And the chefs gradually allowed more creative freedom as classes progressed. “They weren’t on you as much or looking over your shoulder as much; they kind of just allowed you to be in the kitchen. They would give you a production list and say, ‘Take it and run with it. If you have questions or if you need help, of course I’m here.’ But they kind of allowed you to start on your own.” All the week’s work was stored until Friday, when everyone would bring out their work to document it.
Rodgers was proud of a collaborative cream puff with brown sugar mousseline flavored with mango and rum. But the chef pointed out that the mouth feel was too fatty, almost overpoweringly so. “That was a big lesson for me that day, because I focused a lot on flavors and not necessarily how well the components paired together or how satisfying it would be on your tongue.”
One of the term’s biggest challenges was building a sugar sculpture, which Rodgers worked on with another JWU Charlotte student. “This piece was on a larger scale than anything I’d worked on at JWU,” she explained. Although she was nervous, she was determined to face the challenge: “I surprised myself because I was scared as well, but I just had the mentality to have fun, whether it comes out good or bad. And it ended up coming out pretty good!”
Snow Days and Game Nights
Evenings and weekends were free time for the students to explore Yssingeaux, take hikes in the nearby hills or travel.
One of the biggest surprises — and a perfect ice-breaker — happened early in the trip. “I saw snow for the first time on our first weekend!” At first, Rodgers just admired the snow from inside: “We were sitting eating breakfast and somebody opened up the shutters and outside, it was just white and gorgeous. I thought, ‘This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’” Once she ventured outside, she wasn’t quite prepared for the snow’s heavy texture: “I realized, ‘This is wet!’ My hair was soaked, my clothes were soaked. One of the girls who came with us said, ‘Oh, this is your first time! I love this so much for you.’ And she gave me her snow boots so I could go outside.”
The group fashioned makeshift sleds using leftover cardboard covered in trash bags. They also made snow angels in the newly fallen snow and filmed videos on their iPhones. “We were supposed to travel that weekend for one of the girls’ birthdays, but instead we just had a snow day!”
Although the seclusion of the campus environment took some getting used to, the students figured out ways to make it work in their favor, like bringing picnics down to the creek or cooking for one another: “When we moved into our apartments, we decided that we were going to make our own fun. We hosted dinner nights where one person would take a week and would cook, and everybody would go over to their apartment. And we would have game nights. We threw an Au Revoir party before graduation.”
Rodgers wrestled with bouts of homesickness throughout the trip, particularly for social events she was missing on campus. Before she left JWU, she had joined a sorority. “My semester at ENSP was supposed to be my semester to enjoy being in a sorority. I missed it all, but they called me and kept me updated and said, ‘Zoé, we miss you!’” She also missed working as a social media ambassador for the Charlotte marketing team.
“I saw snow for the first time on our first weekend! I thought, ‘This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’”
Rodgers went a week early and stayed two weeks after graduation but didn’t travel while class was in session. (“Getting out of Yssingeaux was expensive and Ubers wouldn’t run that far.”)
Her dad visited before classes started, and her mom, grandmother and aunt came for graduation. “We flew to Lyons and then went to Paris, where we went on a bus tour, and I saw a lot of monuments and architecture. And of course, we saw the Eiffel Tower!”
“I gained a fresh perspective of things that I want to do in the future — what I want my bakery to look like and the type of pastry chef that I want be.”
New Perspectives on Pastry
Rodgers recommends the ENSP program to anyone who is interested in pushing their pastry skills to new heights. “The program will really test if you love what you do or not,” she noted, adding that going through the program clarified her goals: “I gained a fresh perspective of things that I want to do in the future — what I want my bakery to look like and the type of pastry chef that I want be. And it made me want to push — that was my motivation to get up at 5am and just go full force every class.”
The intensity of the program also changed Rodgers’ internal definition of success: “When things didn’t turn out the way that I wanted it to, I thought, ‘I’m failing, but I’m getting a lesson that could help push me towards what I want to do in the future.’ I just tried to soak up as much of it as I can, because I know it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Use your resources and enjoy the moment!”
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