A4 • Friday, July 2, 2021 | Seaside Signal | SeasideSignal.com
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Chef lets faith guide him
What does the Christian culinary experi-
ence mean?
Those in the food service industry often
aren’t very patient, said Ira Krizo, director of
the Christian Culinary Academy in Cannon
Beach. “They’re not always very kind, not
always very loving to each other,” he said.
“Many times they are in it for themselves.”
breads,” Krizo said.
Guest instructors come from restaurants
along the coast or fl y in from other locations.
“Today we had chef Tyler Benson,” Krizo
said. “He actually spent quite a bit of time
in Sri Lanka.”
While most students come from the West,
aspiring chefs come from throughout the
United States and the school is approved
to accept international students. Most culi-
nary schools operate fi ve hours a day, fi ve
days a week. The academy is fi ve days a
week, eight hours a day, enabling students
to fi ll a two-year curriculum into a one-year
program.
Many graduates go on to Christian con-
ference centers, Krizo said. Local restau-
rants who have hired graduates include the
Stephanie Inn, the Wayfarer, Sea Level Bak-
ery + Coff ee and Dough Dough Bakery.
Nationally, students from this year’s gradu-
ating class are headed to the Glen Eyrie Cas-
tle in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the Scott
River Lodge in Fort Jones, California, and
The Crooked Ram in Manchester, Vermont,
among other destinations.
Krizo and his wife, Abby, live with their
two boys, Jonathan, 16, and Samuel, 11, in
Seaside. They met in Cannon Beach when
she was working as business manager at the
Ecola Bible College.
SEEN FROM SEASIDE
R.J. MARX
God calls Christians to be loving, patient
and kind, he said.
His counter to a tense industry? “Our
school is for Christians because it is built
on discipleship, how to become confi dent
in your faith and your culinary skills in the
industry,” Krizo said.
‘You are not a pilot’
Krizo grew up on the border of California
and Oregon, a mile from the small town of
Tule Lake, on his family’s horseradish and
barley farm.
To overcome shyness, he took public
speaking courses and joined the Future Busi-
ness Leaders of America in high school. He
was also deathly afraid of heights, so he con-
quered that by attending aeronautical school.
“When I was young, I was really shy and
it was hard for me to talk to anyone,” Krizo
said. “One thing that I’ve always had is
drive. If I have any challenges, that becomes
my main focus, not in a negative way, but in
a positive way.”
After graduating, he went to Embry-Rid-
dle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ari-
zona, to become a commercial airline pilot.
A side job waiting tables sidetracked his
fl ight career after he accepted a job as a cook
at the Sheraton resort in Prescott.
While he had diffi cult moments — the
sous-chef didn’t like him much and some-
times Krizo got knives thrown at him — the
industry grew on him. “I kept fi nding I had
much more passion for the cooking and not
as much for the fl ying,” he said. “Basically,
God said, ‘You are not a pilot.’”
Krizo attended The Culinary Institute of
America in Hyde Park, New York, where he
learned being a chef was a career, not just
a job.
He studied in Paris and worked at pre-
mier Italian restaurants in Sydney, Austra-
lia, before returning to the United States as
lead line cook at a Bertrand’s, a fi ne dining
French restaurant in San Diego.
Krizo started Christian Chefs Interna-
tional in 1998, developing a curriculum
and teaching culinary arts for what would
become a lifetime of instruction.
Krizo owned the Pinehurst Inn and White
Pine Restaurant, a fi ne-dining bed-and-
Cooking amid the pandemic
R.J. Marx photos
TOP: Chef Ira Krizo runs the Christian Culinary Academy in Cannon Beach. ABOVE: Student
chefs stand with Krizo.
breakfast southeast of Ashland. “We got all
sorts of great reviews, newspaper articles,
but the lease came up and it wasn’t viable to
purchase it,” he said.
He joined a large catering company in
Portland, Catering at Its Best, as head chef.
But throughout, Krizo believed his end goal
would be a culinary school.
“I believe that God has spoken to me
many times. One of the times, it was so clear
it might as well have been an audible voice,”
Krizo said. “I knew that I was going one day
to be a part of something like that to train
others.”
Faith-based cooking
He responded to an invitation to relo-
cate to the North Coast in 2013 and started
the Christian Culinary Academy. “The door
opened up to come here, and here we are,”
Krizo said.
He rents the facility from the Christian
Conference Center.
“It is not a Bible college-seminary culi-
nary school,” Krizo said. “It is a culinary
school preparing students to be profession-
als in the industry that they’re called to.
Many students go into fi ne dining.”
The program features a classical curricu-
lum, with the participation of “The Gallop-
ing Gourmet” Graham Kerr and global mas-
ter chef Karl Guggenmos on the school’s
advisory board.
“We start off with knife skills and we get
into soups, stocks, sauces and then cook-
ing methods of diff erent proteins, meat, fi sh,
poultry, seafood, vegetables, starches ... we
get into salads, appetizers and desserts and
During the pandemic, career colleges
were considered essential, Krizo said, and
the academy did not get shut down.
“When COVID-19 hit a year ago, one of
the things that kept me up all night was what
can we do to not be a circumstance of what’s
going on, but what can we do to make a dif-
ference,” he said.
Students made hundreds of loaves daily,
distributing them to food banks. When their
annual chef’s dinner, typically held in the
institute’s dining room, was canceled due to
the pandemic, they pivoted to takeout from
Cafe Dieu, with food prepared by student
chefs and available from the North Coast
Family Fellowship in Seaside.
“The only thing the pandemic changed
for us is that it opened the door for us to be
more of a support to the community through
producing food for the food bank and bless-
ing the community with our Cafe Dieu take-
out events,” he said. “With how well those
have been received, we plan to continue both
of those after the pandemic is over.”
Before a recent dinner, reservations were
fi lled a week ahead of time. A waiting list
fi lled up and the academy’s student chefs
served 150 guests.
Krizo is looking forward to fall. “We are
excited about all the applications that have
already come in,” he said. There are still
some spaces left.
“This is what I’ve always wanted to do,”
Krizo said. “Now that I’m doing it, I always
want to get better. There’s always room for
improvement.”
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
All about the story for new Seaside librarian
Trash pileups should
be addressed
By R.J. MARX
Seaside Signal
We are tourists visiting Seaside and
what a lovely place it could be. Except
for the heat wave, the mild weather is
much enjoyed. We were dismayed to
see all the trash in the streets and on the
beach. If there are cleanup eff orts, we
have not seen that, but perhaps the city
can help out.
Put more trash containers on cor-
ners. How about more benches for the
elderly? More incentives for businesses
to clean up their areas.
We went fi shing off one of the bridges
and all we caught were plastic bottles. It
is diffi cult to recommend this area under
these circumstances, it has so much
potential for tourism.
Vick Thorson
Tucson, Arizona
After 27 years, Leah Griffi th retired from
her role as Newberg library director in 2019
and returned to Seaside, her hometown.
She hopes to breathe new life into the Sea-
side Museum & Historical Society’s library
collection.
Griffi th has begun with revisions to the
collection, getting rid of out-of-area mate-
rials readily available on the internet or
through library loan. She and Steve Wright,
the museum’s board president and city coun-
cilor, plan on meeting with members of the
Clatsop County Historical Society to dis-
cuss digital preservation of much of the
museum’s archives, including years of city
directories.
Once the paper versions are gone, she
said, they cannot be replaced.
Griffi th’s roots in Seaside go back more
than a century.
“My family’s been here since about
1910,” Griffi th said during a recent museum
tour. “My grandfather was the police chief in
1933 to 1953, and dad was on City Council.
He was a fi refi ghter. I have two chairs from
the lounge area of the fi re department on
Broadway. They’re now in my living room.”
Griffi th is a Rotarian and chairwoman of
the board of directors for the Seaside Public
Library Foundation.
“We’ve got a good base,” Griffi th said of
the museum’s library collection. “It’s had a
lot of support over the years and we’re now
ready to work on some new exhibits. We’ve
developed a committee that’s going to plan
out our exhibits into the future so that we
know the story that we want to tell. That’s
what it’s all about — the story.”
PUBLIC MEETINGS
Contact local agencies for latest meeting
information and attendance guidelines.
TUESDAY, July 6
Seaside Community Center Commission,
10 a.m., 1225 Avenue A.
Seaside Library Board of Directors,
4:30 p.m., 1131 Broadway St.
WEDNESDAY, July 7
Seaside Improvement Commission, 6 p.m.,
989 Broadway.
Gearhart City Council, 7 p.m., www.cityof-
gearhart.com.
THURSDAY, July 8
Seaside Civic and Convention Center Com-
mission, 5 p.m., 415 First Ave.
R.J. Marx
Leah Griffi th is the new librarian for the Seaside Museum & Historical Society.
CIRCULATION
MANAGER
Shannon Arlint
ADVERTISING
SALES MANAGER
Sarah Silver-
Tecza
PUBLISHER
EDITOR
Kari Borgen
R.J. Marx
PRODUCTION
MANAGER
CONTRIBUTING
WRITERS
John D. Bruijn
Skyler Archibald
Joshua Heineman
Katherine Lacaze
Esther Moberg
SYSTEMS
MANAGER
Carl Earl
Seaside Parks Advisory Committee, 6 p.m.,
989 Broadway.
Seaside Signal
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