Culinary is the art and practice of preparation, cooking and presentation of food. The Culinary Catering Program at Lake Stevens High School offers students the ability to bring out their inner chef and cook a variety of foods and desserts.
The Culinary Catering Program is run through the school’s curriculum. In order to join, a student has to take the culinary class as an elective. Senior Trevor Atkinson chose this class as an elective because “it’s an easy class and a break from the normal school day.”
Beyond being fun and an easy A, this class actually offers and teaches more than one may know. The program cooks and caters food for many different campus groups such as, DECA, Staff functions and other after school events.
Their biggest and favorite event is Homecoming, where they served food and drinks for over 1,300 students this year. The culinary program gives students opportunities and experiences they might encounter outside of school.
“The hope is that it sparks an interest in students who hadn’t thought about a career in the culinary world or provide real-life experiences for those that would like to pursue a career in culinary arts,” culinary teacher Jennifer Bishop said.
The food that the program cooks and caters is heavily dependent on the event that is being catered. For the Beyond High School Night event at Lake Stevens High School, the culinary program offered a pasta bar with three different sauces, bread, salad and desserts. The Culinary Catering Program attains its recipes from websites like Pinterest, family recipes or recipes that have been used in the past. All recipes are cooked and tried before the event to make sure they taste good and are properly cooked.
Allergies are also a big cause for concern when catering and making food for others. The Culinary Catering Program ensures to make alternative foods for those allergic to certain ingredients. They also make sure to let people know what the food is and what ingredients it contains which helps those with allergies prevent an accident.
As of right now, the Culinary Catering Program has no plan to expand the program due to some limitations.
“We are limited to only catering for school events and not outside of the school due to health regulations and the way our kitchen classroom was constructed and set up,” Bishop said.
Allowing the Culinary Catering Program to cater outside school events would allow for students to help and feed the community while also bringing in extra revenue for other upgrades to the school. Adding more events especially outside of school could also provide students with community service hours.
All in all, the Culinary Catering Program is a unique elective and provides another option for students to explore for their futures. The Culinary Catering Program teaches students how to properly prepare and cook food which is a very important life skill. A person eats multiple times a day, so why not make that food taste good, right?
