The fine art of cooking is an important lesson to pass down. By doing this, it meas that the next generation of cooks can build upon previous recipes to help support a healthier tomorrow. To teach this younger generation, chefs have to inspire their youthful minds with skills and experience that they’ve already gained in the field. These more experienced chefs reach out to students through programs like Steinbrenner’s own Culinary Skills day, where aspiring cooks get the chance to go to a technical University where several guest speaker chefs came and taught them brand new skills and techniques.
“In culinary skills day we basically went to Keizer technical school and met with chefs who taught us things we could learn here,” said senior Emily Kruger, a member of the culinary program at Steinbrenner. “We rotated around different stations and got the chance to try new foods.”
However, the students didn’t just sit and watch the chefs cook, but were actually given the chance cook with them learning from their years of experiences.
“We watched some demonstrations of some food the chefs were making, we helped out with some of them,” said senior Kiki Stegeman, a member of the culinary program at Steinbrenner.
Students will use the skills they learned through this program in their potential future career in the cooking industry or even in their everyday lives.
“I would say everything we learned was useful because cooking alone is very useful, especially for college, because most of us don’t know how to prepare our own food,” said Kruger.
Students also learned the intricacies of the industry from wise business owners that built a name for themselves in their own respective communities.
“Dr. Barbecue told us a little bit about how he started his own barbecue restaurant and how he became so prominent in the barbecue community,” said Stegeman.
Culinary Skills day served as an opportunity for new cooks to work with and learn from the more experienced chefs in several different fields. The lessons they learned will help them in their future careers or in their daily lives.
Matthew Menendez // Staff Writer
