CARVING CULINARY TALENTS COMEDY SHOW TO HELP FUTURE CHEFS.

Byline: Robert Monroe Staff Writer

SYLMAR - Jose Cruz and Scott Stansbury hit dead ends in their jobs before finding new careers.

So Stansbury left a construction job and indulged a passion for the kitchen. And Cruz decided to make a quantum leap: ``cook'' to ``chef.''

Now, Cruz is a room chef at Mirage resort in Las Vegas, cooking for Mirage owner Steve Wynn's parties. Stansbury serves up dishes to the smoking jacket set at the Playboy Mansion in Holmby Hills.

They are among many graduates of the Mission College Culinary Arts program who have carved niches for themselves in the high-flying world of haute cuisine.

And they did it on a budget.

``We're not like a prestigious cooking school,'' said Cruz, a 42-year-old who grew up in East Los Angeles. ``The Latinos in food service always get stuck on the low end of the totem pole because of lack of culinary school.''

Mission College's program gives them a way up and out, however.

``We like to see our students excel,'' said Chef Rudy Garcia, the leader of the Culinary Arts program known to all his students simply as ``Chef.''

For many, it is the only affordable alternative: The $12-per-unit fee is a drastic contrast to two-year programs at private schools that cost as much as $60,000.

Yet there are costs. Cooking school students at Mission must supply their own tools and uniforms now.

``If we can help students buy a generic set of knives and uniforms, it can help,'' Garcia said.

The required chef's dress ensemble can run several hundred dollars. Add knives and other utensils and the package can run more than $500.

To the rescue comes a comedy fundraiser Friday. The Eastside Comedy Jam is scheduled to include such Latino comics as Edwin Sanjuan, Gilbert Esquival and Joey Medina.

The money raised will go to help students pay for the implements, as well as other costs such travel money to cooking competitions.

The idea was cooked up in part by student Joe Gallardo, vice president of the Culinary Club on campus. He emerged from a drug rehabilitation program looking for a vocation. While taking classes, he works as a chef at the Phoenix House, a group home for adolescents in Lake View Terrace.

``What I got out of it is going to help me. If I can help out the guy coming after me that's great,'' said Gallardo, a 38-year-old Sylmar resident.

Stansbury said he didn't have the $60,000 to pay for two years at a private cooking school, although he was one of the few students in his class who could afford knives when he enrolled in 1996.

``The education is just as good,'' said Stansbury of his time with Garcia. ``He's a hard teacher but he's a good guy and he knows talent and how to feed it.''

Garcia said students have told him how the program has diverted them from probable lives of crime. Students say the course is as much about motivation as about food.

``You learn that only you put limitations on yourself,'' said Cruz.

Cruz himself used borrowed knives when he was a student but he bought one basic chef's jacket for under $50. He shelled out an extra $10 to have his name and ``Mission College'' stitched onto it.

``I still have the jacket,'' he said. ``I have the logo and everything.''

COMICS FOR COOKS

--The Eastside Comedy Jam takes place 8 p.m. Friday at the Campus Center at Mission College, 13356 Eldridge Ave., Sylmar. Tickets are $10 and available at the door. Food prepared by Mission Culinary Arts students will also be on sale. For more information, call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, box

Photo: (1 -- 2) Chef Scott Stansbury, above, opens a tray of italian sausages in preparation for a buffet at a party at the Playboy Mansion. Stansbury, left, jokes with Playboy Playmate Julie McCullough while taking a break from kitchen duty at the Playboy Mansion. Stansbury is one of many successful graduates of Mission College's Culinary Arts program.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer

Box: COMICS FOR COOKS (See text)