Week 2: Let's get chopping.

What I love about our classes is that underneath the mellow exterior, high schoolers really are active people.  And many have chosen our class because they don't want to sit at a desk, they want to come in and work (although tasting the results is certainly an excellent secondary incentive). 

But what do you do with 40 students who want to learn how to chop? Yes, onions are the classic practice chopping item, just having roughly 20 students at a time chopping onions is, well, painful.  This time we used carrots and leeks to make a super simple carrot soup to go with our North African favorite: Chicken Bastilla -- and I was reminded that 25 pounds of chopped carrots does indeed make at least 4 gallons of carrot soup.  Gulp!

Then came the next question, as we were plating:  What does "garnish" mean?  So we got into garnish.

  

Carrot soup with chermoula, cilantro and yoghurt cream, individual bastilla pies, strawberry mango lassi.

Our First Week of Hospitality In The New Year

It was the first time I really made a good meal like that.  Different. Something that I wouldn't have tried, but glad I did b/c it was good.--2nd period student

I enjoyed it immensely.  It was really fun learning the steps and actually doing hands on work was good. -- 3rd period student

.

Italian Frittata with Tomato Sauce, Salad with Oranges & Fennel, Italian Almond Cupcakes (Torta Di Mandorla)

Not a problem.  In the third quarter we seem to go from orientation into measuring into teamwork pretty quickly, even though most of the students are new to the class.  I love the pride and sense of accomplishment.  I will include a link to the rest of the student quotes, the above is an accurate representation of the class sensibility.

The students are raising the bar for me, not the other way around!  Pretty cool.