Entering the classroom, students dressed in white from head to toe, in proper culinary attire, wait to receive instruction for their cake decorating final. Cheryl Lew calls for the attention of her students, beckoning them to really go all-in and make the best sweet confections. Mixers were out, and students gathered butter and flour. Some grated carrots; one student carefully measured matcha powder. Lew paced around the room, observing her students as the sounds of eggs being cracked open and ingredients being whipped in high power mixers filled the air.
Lew, a Culinary Arts instructor at Laney College, believes that being a successful baker requires plenty of practice. Her culinary students can expect to gain the experience necessary to be successful through sharing knowledge, confidence, and even joy.
“They have to enjoy it,” Lew said. “But I think knowledge and confidence is a big part of the success.”
She has a degree from UC Berkeley in Asian American Studies, with a minor in chemistry, infusing culture and chemistry into her culinary arts.
Lew named her family, growing up bilingual, being born and raised in the Bay Area, being Chinese American, and attending both Chinese and Catholic schools all as fundamental influences to her personal and professional growth. Her early life has influenced much of her aspirations, and her parents and family have directed her pursuits as a baker — not by pressure, but through the care and seasoned understanding that food can bring people joy.
“My grandmother and my mother used to make dim sum in Sacramento on the weekends when I was growing up, because we didn’t have dim sum in Sacramento, and that’s how I learned how to do it,” Lew said. “My uncle, who is in LA, we went every summer. He owned a Chinese restaurant, and we would help him do things. Everything from reset tables, to sweeping floors, to making dumplings, to helping to chop and wash vegetables.”
Particularly, she said growing up in the Bay Area and Sacramento allowed for a multicultural culinary, educational, and social experience.
Lew’s background isn’t all in the culinary arts, though. Her mother worked in education, while her father was a chemist. Lew thought her life would look a little different.
“I thought I was going to try really hard to possibly do medicine or become a lawyer or one of those things that other immigrant parents want you to do,” Lew said. “But I didn’t really enjoy it. And because of the fact that I’d always been around political things with my parents, I decided, well, let’s do Asian American studies.”
While attending college, Lew found her way back into kitchen work. Whether baking, cooking, or managing local Telegraph Avenue hotspot Blondie’s, she’s drawn to the art and the science of the culinary world. She also worked at local produce stores Berkeley Bowl and Monterey Market. For 26 years, between 1990 to 2016, she owned and operated a bakery in the Oakland Hills named Montclair Baking, garnering local and national recognition for her work.
Lew is a certified Master Baker through the organization Retail Bakers Association of America. The organization helps to certify bakers regardless of their formal education in culinary arts. This allows retail bakers to apply their work experience towards the same opportunities as bakers with degrees.
She said when she attended the course, it was difficult for women to pass, due to physical capacity requirements like carrying a standard size bag of flour. At the time, a standard bag of flour weighed 100 pounds. Now, the standard weight is 50 pounds.
“I don’t know how many women have taken it now, but at the time that I took it, I think there was something ridiculous, like less than 15 women had passed the test,” Lew remarked.
She took the certification at the very culinary department she works in today, at Laney in 2002 or 2003. She became nationally appreciated for her skills, earning second place twice on the Domaine Carneros cake making contests. Lew also featured as a local pastry chef in the movie “Eat at Bill’s”, about the relationship between local farmers, chefs who shop local, and the Monterey Market. She was hired at Laney College in 2012 and fully tenured in 2015.
She is also a board member of the Berkeley Food Institute, an initiative through Cal Berkeley for social and environmental justice. The institute is focused on everything from treatment of farmers to public policy of the food industry and culture. She advises her own students on starting their own businesses, and is a minor partner at Boichik Bagels.
When she isn’t being an advisor, professor, or chef, she enjoys many other hobbies. Besides baking, she loves to travel and will read just about anything. She loves to take day trips across the Bay Area to see new bakeries. She follows up on her students who have started their own bakeries under her guidance. She gardens at home in Oakland, and her favorite thing to make are salads using ingredients from her backyard.
