Beverly’s culinary arts program brought together students from all corners of the culinary program to cater Back to School Night on September 5. This year’s Back to School Night featured foods representing several different cultures with a menu drafted entirely by students.
Reflecting on the night, culinary instructor Chef Leece noted the drastic difference between the catering of this Back to School Night and those catered in the past. “My first year I found myself trying to do everything just me: washing the dishes, getting the food done. As the years progressed I saw the students had more and more potential. Now I pretty much assign my top students to run the entire night...they execute everything,” Leece said.
Sophomores Sander Mendelsohn and Melina Rosen both commented on their first experiences catering an event with culinary.
“I think it’s an important event to happen for us,”Mendelsohn said. “It gets more eyes on the culinary program here. We obviously want to have everyone enjoy our food and convince more parents to enroll their children in our class.”
“It's really fun to feel that sense of responsibility in the kitchen where chef’s not in the kitchen. I really liked being independent,” Rosen said.
Watching the parents eating crepes throughout the event, Rosen said she felt excited after working on perfecting them all week, she was “really happy” that her hard work paid off.
Senior Chloe Chriqui, one of three head chefs of the evening, was ecstatic about showcasing the skills that the students have learned in their culinary classes.
“It just makes me so happy. I love when parents can see what their kids are physically doing at school instead of just being [behind] their books,” Chriqui said. “Overall, I can’t complain. Nothing is broken and no one has food poisoning. Everything went really well, everyone loved the food.”
Catering Back to School Night gives the advanced culinary students hands on experience working an event and helps them understand more about some of the career options that the culinary field offers.
“I try to tell them to really do what’s going to make them happy,” Leece said. “I try to enlighten them about the options in their life and to never be afraid to dabble in something because you might be good at it. You might realize that that is a passion and a love of yours.”