Written By: Allurabella Chandler, Staff Writer, and Simranpreet Kaur, Staff Writer
CHOPPED: Poly reigns triumphant in the Culinary competition of the year in the Inland Empire.
This year’s fantastic Culinary Arts Program just won the Chopped competition for the 2nd year in a row! The Chopped competition is based off of a show on Food Network with the same name. The students Santiago Avila, Kyran Schindler, Noemi Martinez, Lilly Lozano, and Aiden Perez, all participated in this competition, securing them the win with their Pad Thai dish. They worked together to make an extraordinary dish in a very limited amount of time, and succeeded flawlessly with their skills learned from taking part in this engaging program.
The future of the Culinary Arts Program will be undeniably successful, especially with the new 5 million dollar budget the Culinary facility at Poly High received as a part of increased school funding. Chef Lovett, the Culinary teacher states “we want to bring it to the same level as a college or culinary school curriculum.” Chef says that in the future he is looking forward to giving the students a look into the food industry pathway as a career they can pursue.
There are many students here at Poly who are waiting in a very long line to get into the Culinary classes, and few are lucky enough to enjoy the pleasures of working in the kitchen as an elective class. Sophomore Emelia Gaines, a student who joined Culinary for the first time this year, stated that she “liked that it allows her to express herself in the kitchen and gives her an opportunity to learn new recipes from around the world.” The students in the Culinary program are insanely passionate about working with food, and learning new things in the kitchen.
The Culinary program at Poly offers great classes, such as Intro to Culinary, Advanced Culinary, and Culinary Cafe. Each class gives students different opportunities to showcase their love and dedication to the food industry. Intro to Culinary starts the students off by learning easier recipes to kick off their cooking journey. These classes also ensure that the students learn the basics of cooking, along with cleaning the kitchen and being taught how to use a professional dish washing machine, a skill needed if someone hopes to enter the food industry. Advanced Culinary is the class you would have to take after completing the Intro course. The advanced classes are tougher than intro, after learning the basics and newer recipes, things start to get a little tougher. Learning more advanced techniques and skills, the students master all tools of the kitchen, becoming more proficient in that space. Being in the advanced Culinary class is quite the skill for young chefs.
Lastly, the Culinary Cafe classes offer a different approach to the Culinary arts from the other culinary courses. Culinary Cafe focuses mainly on the business side of the food industry. Still making simple foods every now and then, the Culinary Cafe classes focus on working the Grizzly Grill, where they sell the finest foods and snacks to the hard working staff of Poly High. These classes focus on their ways of thinking on their feet, and working as a team to complete every order with precision, even in the early mornings.
Coupled with the success that they have seen, this program has a very promising future, especially with the new spot on campus that will come to life in the next few years. These exciting facts about the culinary program are getting everyone even more excited than ever before. The expectations for the culinary program have become very high amongst the student life, and everyone believes that these courses will exceed people’s expectations in the future and become a program like no one has ever seen before. The culinary classes have been very popular, and will continue getting even more attention with these significant changes to come.