COAL GROVE - The menu at the Dawson-Bryant High School cafetorium was decidedly different Monday.

In place of the standard burger was a chicken cordon bleu tartine or a roast beef tartine with horseradish sauce and caramelized onions, either served with a salad or fries. And the lunch was served up by a real live chef.

Dan Ehler, of Milwaukee, Wis., is a corporate chef for Taher Food Service Management Co., the entity that manages food service for the Dawson-Bryant system.

Ehler and other Taher chefs visit clients periodically to share new-found knowledge of menu trends and to encourage cafeteria staffs to offer new foods - and to encourage

the hungry to give the new tastes a try.

"We're offering something new for lunch," Ehler said. "We want them to open their eyes to other things such as Chiabitta. We try to pass on knowledge. … We're trying to get them to see things they are accustomed to and put it together in different ways."

Ehler's new ideas got a thumbs-up from some of the students.

"It's excellent," freshman Mason Hogan said.

And he should know: Hogan visited the food line three times to snatch samples of both tartines until cooks shooed him away.

"I like the sauce top of it," sophomore Kris Crabtree said as he scooped up another sample of the chicken cordon bleu. "That's the best thing about it. This is really good."