Amy Clippard is a sous chef at Southeast Missouri State University (SEMO), where she balances her time between catering for large events, cooking lessons for students, and creating new recipes and displays. Last year, she traveled to Dallas as one of 23 chefs from across the country to participate in the Women in Culinary Showcase, an internal leadership
program through Chartwell’s Higher Edu- cation. Clippard, who had never flown on a plane, says it was encouraging to be around so many creative women.
Here, she shares one of her favorite recipes and answers questions about her role as a sous chef, the lessons she’s learned from failure, and whether or not, after cooking all day, she also cooks at home.
Amanda Flinn: Have you always been interested in cooking?
Amy Clippard: I grew up cooking in the kitchen with my grandma, at her farm in Millersville, Mo. I was really young, and I just liked it. She was always cooking corn- bread and fried potatoes — those were staples — and she would let me choose a fruit or vegetable right out of the garden to go with it. Strawberries were my favorite. Cooking became a thing for me. My grandma taught me to “cook with some love.”
How did you get started in culinary arts?
When I was 17 or 18 years old, I went through an eight-month culinary arts program at St. Louis Job Corps Center. Then, I started having kids and put the idea of being a sous chef on hold. In 2001, I began working for Chartwells Higher Education on the SEMO campus. When the sous chef position came open in the summer of 2022, I applied and have been here ever since. In the fall of 2022, Chartwells rebranded to SEMO Dining. I’m learning as I go. Thankfully, we have a great team and a network of chefs within our region that help when needed.
As a sous chef, what do your days look like?
I do catering more than anything, so planning, ordering and prepping are all part of it. This month, we served 500 at the Power of Women event, 780 at the Cape Chamber Awards and 250 at the President’s Council. We do a lot of in-house catering for the university, but also quite a few weddings and bridal shows. Plus, I help out in other areas of the kitchen, give monthly cooking tutorials to students, and over the summer, I help the director come up with menus for the following school year.
Cooking with students sounds fun. How did that get started?
We started these [workshops] in the fall of 2022. They are free for students. Every month, we promote a feel-good food of the month and try to tie it together with our cooking lesson. Students tend to want something they can easily duplicate in their dorm room, so for November, we made a turkey-shaped cheeseball. Once, we had a coconut chickpea curry. We usually do a dish and sometimes a drink. It takes about 60 minutes, but the students see it as fun and continue to come back.
What do you love about cooking?
I enjoy the creativity. Recently, the catering director Christie McIntosh and I made a candy charcuterie board for TRIO, a student support program on campus. They were having an overnight party, so we used Nutter Butters as people, added eyes, and wrapped them in Fruit Roll-Up sleeping bags, surrounded by all kinds of treats. We ended up getting a Campus Partnership Award because of it. Christie and I like to experiment together and always have fun. Sometimes, I go to TikTok to see what’s trending, but then adapt it and make it my own.
Has cooking taught you anything about failure?
Of course. Things can always go wrong in the kitchen. I’ve messed up on sauces, added too much salt, and sometimes have to start all over. I fail all the time, but I never give up. This year at the bridal show, we played with a butter candle display. I melted the butter and infused it with rosemary, lemon zest and garlic, but when we poured it into the cup, all the “extras” went to the bottom. It didn’t turn out like we thought, but we’re not gonna give up on it. We plan on working on it some more and want to master it. I’m convinced that the secret to being a great chef is not how well you can cook, but how well you can problem-solve.
Cooking for a large crowd seems stressful. Is it?
It comes down to time management. I always start off with a prep list and decide what can be done ahead of time. I might love [the process] of making mashed potatoes, but that last hour when everything is coming done at the same time and needs to be panned up, that is stressful. Sometimes, you have to delegate tasks and understand people’s strengths.
So, truth be told: After cooking all day, do you go home and cook?
On a busy day, I might pick up food on the way home, but usually, even when exhausted, I can start pulling stuff out [of the pantry] and come up with something. Making do with what you’ve got gets the creative juices flowing.
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