91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳

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Podcast: S8 Ep. 32
Date: November 03, 2025
Title: LU Moment: What's cooking with Chef Casey Gates | S8 Ep. 32
Host: John Rollins

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JOHN ROLLINS: Welcome to the LU Moment, where we showcase all the great things happening with 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ faculty, staff, students and alumni. I'm John Rollins, Associate Director of Community Relations and Public Affairs here at LU, and I want to welcome you all to this week's show. From Papa John's delivery driver to executive chef of local hospitals, to business owner, my guest today began his journey as chef for the 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ culinary program in the fall of 2022. It's my pleasure to welcome Chef Casey Gates to the show today. Thanks for joining me today on the LU Moment.

CASEY GATES: Thanks for having me.

JOHN: Glad to have you up here. I've seen stories about you and seen you around campus, but it's nice to get to sit down and actually chat and learn a little bit more about this program and what you do and your journey. So, I do know I read you have over 30 years of culinary experience.

CHEF GATES: Yes, I probably started in the food industry when I was 18, so I just turned 50. So, 32 years.

JOHN: 32 years. Okay, so clearly you enjoy it. Doing what you love, right? So, your role as culinary instructor and chef here at 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ falls under the Department of Nutrition, Hospitality and Human Services in the College of Education and Human Development. So what does a day in the life of Chef Gates look like? I know, it's probably a loaded question, right?

CHEF GATES: Yes, still I’m a business owner as well. So I take care of that in the morning, you know? I get up, get the boys ready, we ship them off to school, and then I go do my two mile walk. Just clear my head, get ready for the day, make a plan. I get my shopping list for everything that I need for either here or the other job, and hit the store, usually Market Basket or H-E-B, and then disperse it, and then head up here. And I'm usually here. Oh, my lab classes end at 8:30 usually we're in a lab from about 11:30 to 8:30 on Mondays and Wednesdays. So those are my long days.

JOHN:  So you're in there cooking with students that whole time?

CHEF GATES: Yeah, we used to do a once a week lab session, but I just didn't think they were getting enough hands on. So doubled it up, and I think they're enjoying it.

JOHN: Yeah, I bet so. I mean, with a career that you're pursuing like that, in particular, you want that hands on.

CHEF GATES: You can't get proficient in cutting an onion if you just come to class once a week. And that's right, you do is two or three onions. You know, here's your 50-pound sack of onions. Let's dice them up.

JOHN: It's a lot of class that'll lead to a lot of experience, right?

CHEF GATES: Yes, for sure.

JOHN: So I do want to ask, you know, let's hear about your journey that led you here to Lamar. We talked about that 30-year career, but where did the love for cooking begin for you?

CHEF GATES: Man, really, until I got here, cooking was more just necessity. Let me feed myself and my family. It was the hospitality gigs that I've had, working pizza and things like that – it was all really to pay the bills. You know, got out of high school, did a couple years of college. It wasn't for me. I just wasn't ready for it, yeah, tired of spending the money on it, so took a little break, got the job that paid cash quick, and that was pizza, and I think I drove, just as a driver for a couple months, and then promoted up to management and got my own stores. Every job from that point on has been some sort of General Manager or upper level management, and wherever I've been. So, it's really the numbers side that I understand that helps me with that so, and that's kind of what I try to push on to the students, is you get, I know you hate math, but Right? You gotta know what you're looking for.

JOHN: The pizza places, yeah, I believe hospitals too, right?

CHEF GATES: Yeah, hospitals. I did the hospitals after graduating from here. Pay was a lot better. The benefits were great, right? Those corporate gigs are great, so yeah, did those for a couple years. Met my wife, she was actually my boss, when I was working at a left the hospital, went to Bando’s for a little while, local catering. Oh, yeah. And she was a chef there, met her there. And she was my boss. She's still my boss.

JOHN: Boss in a different capacity, right?

CHEF GATES: Well, no, she's actually the owner of the business that we have so she can fire me at any time.

JOHN: Well do you want to talk about your business too?

CHEF GATES: Well, we do a lot of local catering. Right now we're doing school food service. We do the food at All Saints Episcopal School, we had the food service at Legacy just was too much for us to do, so backed it back down to just one school so, but we're always looking for something

JOHN: That's exciting and that keeps you as a working chef as well. I mean, you do it here at Lamar, you're teaching and imparting that wisdom, but then you're out actually working, right?

CHEF GATES: Cooking, you know, especially in class, when we come up to certain topics, you know, I use real life, what I'm going through now, or what I've been through, to help relate better to the students. It's not just you have to learn this because of this. This is it's, yeah, I learned this the hard way, because this, this like I lived and worked through this. This is why I'm sharing it, yeah. And I, you know, I don't sugarcoat stuff. It's that keeps you you're choosing hospitality and culinary. It's not an easy job. You know, cooking may be the easy part of it, but the stress on your body, stuff like that. Yeah, you know, it's, it could take a toll, so be prepared the long hours. Eight hours in the cooking lab. And I was telling them, this is an easy day. You get out there and you have your own business. It's 14 to 16, hour work days, right? People call in, you still have to make the deadline.

JOHN: Might be catering for 200 or 300 people at a wedding, you know. And the food's got to come out at an exact moment, and got to have that buffet full and, you know. So, yeah, sounds like you're you're teaching them the right way, for sure, if you're late, you're not going to get another job, right? Well, something interesting you just brought up. You worked for Bando’s, and I know Chef Duit kind of preceded you in this role. And he was here, I think, 40 years which, yeah, so huge shoes to fill. Whenever you went through this program at Lamar. Did you learn from him?

CHEF GATES: Oh, yeah. Chef Charles is my chef, he'll always be. Whenever I see him, it's how you doing chef. He's my chef. So he, when I got here, I was really going to just do the hospitality side of it, got into the culinary program, fell in love with it, and he was just really a wealth of knowledge for me. I went and did my internship for him at Calder Woods retirement center. Oh, okay. And then after graduation, did the hospitals, and kind of got burned out on that, but went to went to Bando’s, and she put me to work so and got to see him, because he works there too.

JOHN: I love that. So, let's go ahead and talk about these upcoming dinners, the fall dinners that you all are putting on. I know these are open to the public, and they will involve both the Culinary and Hospitality students. So, tell us more about these.

CHEF GATES: So, one of my classes, one of the hospitality classes that I do, will do the front of the house. They'll do table set up, basically the wait staff during this meal, and then the culinary students, which half those hospitality students out front have been in the culinary side, so they've already done this class. Now they're up at the front of the house, so the culinary classes will do the dinners. They've done everything from planning the menu to doing the prep and pull lists, and then Monday, we'll knock out the prep and feed everybody. Yeah. So used to be, Chef Charles would do the menus, and this is what we’re doing. I've kind of put it on them to y'all need to design this and, okay, let's look at colors and plating and all that kind of stuff. It gives them buy-in. They have a voice, and they're super proud. The last class that we did this with, I mean, huge smiles on their face, yeah? So it was great. It was a proud papa moment, right?

JOHN: I love that, especially when you're teaching and you want them to have that confidence, to be able to have that creative autonomy, you know. I love that. Let me ask you this, how many people I know it's open to the public? I believe $30 a ticket.

CHEF GATES: Yes, $30 a ticket. I've got 30 seats. So it's very limited. The dinner is going to be over at the Nutrition building, right across from the library, and it's right there in the foyer, so it's very small, intimate. We'll have music playing in the background. Yes, usually dinner starts. They get there around 6 p.m. We plate and serve at 6:30 and they're usually done by 8or 8:30, so about an hour and a half to two hours for the dinner. Just real chill, relaxed, bring the students out, make them introduce themselves and disperse and talk to the guests. So, you know that's another big thing, is you've got to be able to talk to these people. Not just through texting them on your phone, right? So it's called hospitality for a reason. Gotta be hospitable, be able to have conversations with them.

JOHN: So I do want to obviously mention the dates. That's Monday Nov. 3 and Monday Nov.10. Yes, $30 a ticket. What else can folks expect? What kind of food? What are y'all serving?

CHEF GATES: So, we try to do a different type of meal, or different cuisine each meal that we do this year, with all the other fundraising and stuff that I've got them involved in, we're only going to do two. So Nov.3, we're going to do sort of a South of the Border meal. Okay, so we're going to start off with shrimp ceviche. Then we'll do a beef tenderloin with chimichurri, and then the dessert is going to be a tres leche. Everything's going to be from scratch. They just practice this tres leche, I think, two weeks ago, and it was phenomenal. So looking forward to that. The beef tenderloin that we're going to do, I'll sous vide it during the day, and then we'll give it a nice sear before we serve it. It'll be great. You can't get a tenderloin for 30 bucks anywhere.

JOHN: Oh, no. Absolutely not. It's a good deal, and the tres leches, I mean, come on, it’s almost worth it to come just for dessert.

CHEF GATES: I mean, it's gonna be good. And then the10th, we're going to do kind of Southeast Texas, Southwest Louisiana vibe. It's kind of what I love. So, okay, yeah, we're gonna do a wild game gumbo. And I actually brought you some gumbo. Oh, okay, but it's not the wild game, it's it's chicken and sausage, but the all works the same. I'm going to do goose. So we'll have goose and sausage gumbo, so it'll be pretty similar to this. And then we're going to do a black and red fish with a Creole cream sauce, crawfish Creole cream sauce. And then the desserts going to be a banana fosters, creme brulee.  So they're really excited about all this stuff. They really worked hard. I've worked them hard this semester, so let's get them a good full crowd.

JOHN: And I mean, like you said, for $30 you can't beat this. And I tell people all the time, come to Lamar. We've got theater productions, athletics, we've got our culinary students doing things. There's always something to come see or do or be a part of. And we want the community to come out and, you know, engage with our students, see the work that is coming out of 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳, because they are going to go on to hopefully be our local chefs, right?

CHEF GATES: Right. And that's the whole goal, is to try to get some of these students to stick around here, yeah, right? Because we do need, we have several, you know, chefs locally that are great. They're really great, but we could always use more.

JOHN: Yeah, we could always use more. What is that saying? There's a seat for everyone at the table. I like to use that one. So let me ask you this before we wrap up. You know, have you been able to implement any new changes into the program that you've seen good results from so far?

CHEF GATES: So I'm currently going through and revising several of the classes and just updating, and I think that's really the biggest thing, is just an update new information, and just making sure it's not the 1980s information. You know that some of these textbooks have getting a little more current, right? And just getting with some of the students and seeing what they're interested in cooking. Because, I mean, a technique is a technique. You know, we can teach it on whatever recipes they want to do, but if it's something that they definitely don't want to do, I don't want to do it. So, yeah, but, but I've started getting some like gluten free flours and things like that. So, yeah, because, you know, I do have a couple students that are celiac and, you know, just gluten free diets, a couple vegetarians. So I try to adjust the recipes accordingly to where they're not just cooking and then they can't taste it because it's, it's against their diet, right?

JOHN: Well, you're also teaching them to be conscious of, you know, who they're serving. Because I know a lot of the galas and things you attend around town, they'll ask you, you know, do you need a vegetarian option? Are you gluten free? So that kind of helps to let people know, you know that I'm trying to teach them.

CHEF GATES: You know, it doesn't always have to be a grilled portobello mushroom, right? That's usually the vegetarian option is, for sure. Is the or a side of veggies on it, right? You know, we already have, yeah, we can do something a little extra.

JOHN: Yeah, no, that's, that's a great example, for sure. So what's your favorite thing about working with the students?

CHEF GATES: Sure, there's a lot. Yeah, there's, there really, is a lot. Really, you know, talking with them. And just when something clicks for me, when something clicks for them, and they finally understand it, it's like, Ah, great. I love the “aha moment,” yeah, you know, or just seeing their face after they've cooked something and it turns out the way they want, you know, yeah, it's, it's great to see that sense of pride with the light bulb over their head, right?

JOHN: I love that. So Chef Gates, thanks again for joining me on the podcast, and we'll have to bring you back on later. And if y'all keep doing these dinners, we're here to promote for  sure, sure appreciate it.

CHEF GATES: Thank you very much. Thank you for all you do.

JOHN: For more information on those dinners, visit lamar.edu/dinnersinthefall. Alright, folks, that's a wrap on another episode. As always, make sure to search LU Moment wherever you get your podcast to keep up with the events, activities, programs and people right here at 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳. This is John Rollins, your host. Thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.