After years of long wait and note taking, Culinary students finally have a lab to work in!
For the past three years, the students of Chef Lien and Cole have been unable to do any type of actual cooking, “…due to the lack of focus the county has on CSHS,” says Jaime Cano-Gasca, who has been in the program since it was available at CSHS.
In the past, the Chefs had to resort to other means of teaching the students. Chef Cole, in particular, was able to think out of the box when it came to teaching.
“There’s a lot of substitute practical assignments or substitute practical activities… An activity I learned at Culinary school was: you put multiple beans in a pan and you flip them, and obviously if you drop them you’re wasting food, right?
“So since I didn’t have beans nor did I have a stovetop, I actually taught my last three classes before this year how to flip paperclips in a pan. So to see if you drop paperclips, it signifies you dropping a bean… It took a lot of being a little bit more spontaneous with your lesson plans and trying to think more outside the box rather than your traditional lab setting.”
Along with learning how to flip pans without wasting food, students also learned to understand “the fundamentals of the restaurant business, hospitality, catering, and cooking through paper, books, and test material,” according to Jaime.
Now that the Culinary class has a lab, there is so much to look forward to. Chef Cole, when asked how teaching now would compare to that of last year, says that more hands-on lessons would be introduced.
“My method of teaching I would want to do in the lab would be: Maybe we do a chapter a week, but then once a week, per either green or blue day, I wanna do a demo so I can give each class equal amounts of practical, hands-on demonstrations.”
Speaking of hands-on, Kayla Connell, Head of Culinary, recalls a time Culinary had production every morning.
“…from my knowledge, we used to have production every morning. Meaning we would make breakfast for teachers, then shortly after that we would get started on lunch production for teacher and staff members.”
Along with production, Culinary participates in events alongside schools such as Coral Glades, MSD, and JP Taravella, according to Connell.
Cole’s advice for Culinary students would be: Make sure you have discipline, make sure your grades are good in other classes, meaning you put just as much effort into them as you would culinary, but most importantly:
“Make sure when you wanna come to Culinary Arts, you’re not just coming because you think you wanna eat. You come into this class ‘cuz [sic] you wanna be great. If you wanna come into this program, it’s to be great.”
As of September 25, Culinary is once again offering a limited menu to faculty & staff.
