19 and headed for the bigs

The 16 patrons seated along the counter at Cook, the exclusive demonstration kitchen near Rittenhouse Square, watch chef Sylva Senat as he places a bass fillet in a pan.

A glorious aroma fills the air to the sound of sizzling.

"Fish normally will curl up by the edges," Senat, the executive chef at Tashan, tells the class, each of whom has paid $175 for the evening this month. "Do you know how we keep that from happening?"

Brianna Wellmon knows. In a white jacket, black apron, and black hat, Wellmon is his sous chef, both at his restaurant and for this class, working at his right elbow. She watches him place a small skillet on top of the fish to keep it flat while it cooks. The crowd murmurs appreciatively at this small kitchen tip.

Wellmon learned this technique six months ago from Senat.

In May, Wellmon, 19 - who graduated from Dobbins High School last year, where she was a star in its Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP) - will travel to Hyde Park, N.Y., as an incoming freshman at the Culinary Institute of America, arguably the nation's leading cooking school.

Through scholarships she has won for her cooking - nearly $50,000 through C-CAP alone, plus thousands here and there from other organizations - the South Philadelphia woman has, in effect, wrangled herself a full ride to the CIA. Before she enrolls, she will have completed a mandatory six months' work experience in a commercial kitchen.

Senat, a C-CAP participant nearly two decades ago while in high school in Brooklyn, heard about her through C-CAP founder Richard Grausman, who asked him to mentor her. Senat then realized she was the bright, wisecracking woman he had met last year at a competition.

"He told me to move a towel off my shoulder while I was cooking," Wellmon said. "So I moved it an inch." Senat scowled, but liked her sense of spunk.

And her passion. She keeps up with the work at her station, garde manger (salads) and pastry. "But she's more or less a roundsman," working at every station in the kitchen, "when anybody calls out sick," Senat said.

Her teachers rave about her drive - how she graduated with a 3.7 grade-point average and competed on the school's robotics team.

"Chef [Senat] calls me a nerd," Wellmon said. "Yeah, I am."

Wellmon said she began her professional journey when she was 9. With three older brothers and a younger brother, the lone daughter of a single mother tried her hand in the kitchen. Initial dishes included macaroni and cheese.

Asked how she knew she was any good, she replied offhandedly: "When my brother [Jamar] didn't spit the food out."

At the beginning, "I kind of experimented a lot. The first time I made fried chicken," at age 11, "I didn't know anything about seasoning. I saw my mother put flour on it, but I didn't know you must salt chicken."

Wellmon said she is working toward her goal of owning a restaurant with Jamar in mind. "I'm a big sister and I want to set an example for him," she said. "I want him to see there is a way to a better life."

For now, Wellmon's friends, most of whom live in South Philadelphia, are being exposed to her worldliness. "I like to try new restaurants, so usually I'm the one who picks the place," she said. "I eat lamb and deer and rabbit. My friends sometimes say, 'We're not eating that, no.' I'm the one who gets them to try new things. Like we were at Morimoto, and I said, 'You should order sushi.' And my friends say, 'I'm not eating that. Is there baked chicken?' I did get them to eat calamari at McCormick & Schmick. I told them what it was afterward."

"A lot of kids will win awards but can't make it at CIA because they don't have the grade-point average," said Penny Greenberg, her culinary teacher at Dobbins, herself a CIA alumna. "The thing about Brianna is that she is talented and I know she can handle the [academic] work."

There is the reality that Wellmon will be solidly in the minority at CIA. A school representative said that its student body is just 7 percent nonwhite - and that is double its minority population of 10 years ago.

"There will be a lot of people who have their opinion on women chefs," Wellmon said. "Most are not culinary arts - they're in pastry. It's chauvinist. Some men don't think of women as chefs. They think we should be baking cookies and pies."

She said Senat has told her: "Not only are you a woman but as an African American, you should always put extra effort into it. For some people, you will always have to prove yourself."

In February at a C-CAP event in New York, she saw few nonwhite, female faces among the chefs.

"I grew up with older brothers," Wellmon said. "Being around guys is OK. You have to take the good with the bad. I keep a thick skin and that's good for anyone in this field. Stay tough. I'm a firm believer in survival of the fittest."

Wellmon regularly stayed after school to work on her technique. In competitions, students not only have to create dishes from recipes but also work on cutting skills - julienne, dice, etc. - to precise standards.

"It's very cool to see someone with her passion," said Marjorie Kloss, a chef instructor. More than possessing good chops in the kitchen, Kloss said, "she has all the makings of an entrepreneur. She knows really good food and has a good front-of-the-house presence."

Wellmon turns the praise toward Senat. "He took a kid fresh out of high school. The only good part of this is that I had a clean slate," she said. "And I get paid for it."

She professes to be "scared of the tandoors" at Tashan, whose cuisine is Indian.

Wellmon's work at Tashan has been revelatory, said Greenberg, her Dobbins teacher. "Her way of thinking has been refined. The way she carries herself is different. Her world is larger. It's opened up her horizons." At the C-CAP event, "she met Bette Midler and [chef] Marcus Samuelsson. When she goes to Culinary, she'll be at a whole new level. This will be a wonderful thing to see."