Culinary Arts instructor and chef Gerry Murphy, who spent his summer vacation on Navy destroyers.

SWBOCES Culinary Arts instructor Gerry Murphy had barely finished the 2006-2007 school year, shepherding this year’s high school seniors through to their graduations, when he received an unexpected call from the U.S. Navy.

Murphy, who hasn’t been on a seaworthy vessel for 25 years -- and that seaworthy vessel was a canoe -- soon found himself boarding a huge Navy helicopter in Norfolk, Va., then flying to the USS Enterprise, a massive nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that currently is home to almost 6,000 active Navy personnel.

Once on board, the tough but affable culinary arts instructor quickly set to work, helping Navy cooks enhance their skills, serve safely cooked foods, and meet stringent National Restaurant Association and U.S. Navy cooking standards. The Navy’s goal is to ensure that its cooks pass American Culinary Federation certification exams with a grade of 85 percent or higher, and Murphy was “enlisted” over the summer to help out.

Murphy, who had to get top-secret security clearance before boarding the Enterprise, said he convinced Navy officials in advance to permit him to teach in the galleys on board the aircraft carrier, instead of in classroom settings.

“It would only be successful if I could observe them on the job and teach them there,” said Murphy, whose BOCES students over the years have been accepted to such notable cooking schools as the Culinary Institute of America and Johnson & Wales University, many later opening their own restaurants.

Apparently, the Navy instruction was a success, because after a two-day break from his work aboard the Enterprise, Murphy was headed back to repeat his performance, this time on the flagship USS Mount McKinley, where some of the Navy’s top officials are located.

Ironically, after spending a week aboard the Mount McKinley, Murphy the landlubber was heading off on a pleasure cruise with 39 other family members, an event coincidentally planned months ago in celebration of his mother’s birthday.

Murphy, who served in the Navy until his discharge in 1972, is still not sure how he landed the summer contract, noting that Navy officials would only tell him that he “came highly recommended.” But the longtime instructor suspects that a relative of a recent BOCES graduate might have passed along the recommendation.

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