Personal Statement

I have always had a passion for the culinary arts. At a young age I would experiment in the kitchen with such things as baking cakes and cooking pancakes. From this, I developed a need for more. As I got older I would try more complicated recipes such as homemade pasta and meatballs or pizza made completely from scratch. I got these ideas from the Food Network mostly, and some from old family recipes. Some years later I entered high school; this was a huge slap in my face. I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. I went through my freshman and half my sophomore year barely passing my classes. About half way through my sophomore year I saw a newspaper ad for a vocational school in the area. I had always cooked at home and loved it

In my new school, Keefe Tech, there is a bake side and a cook side. There is also a teacher dining room, café 101, and a dining room for serving the public, The East Side Room. Each half semester we switch sides, either baking or cooking. On each side we have different duties, for instance, on bake side in the morning you make the recipes provided and then in the afternoon you serve in the dining room. On cook side in the morning you will mise en place your dishes and in the afternoon you cook those dishes on the line for the restaurant. When I first transferred, it was not clear to me if I wanted to pursue cooking or baking. Fairly quickly I decided I wanted to cook, I loved how everything wasn’t as exact and how you could play around with all the different flavors. I quickly began to raise my grades, in both culinary and academics. I was still struggling in some classes but for once I wasn’t scared I was going to fail. Sophomore year I got my servsafe certification, I had studied so hard for this and almost everyone in my shop was completely dumbfounded when I had been there a little over a month and passed. I gained a lot of respect from the other students after

This is where we refine our skills we will be using mostly throughout the week. For example, one time we make homemade pasta and made it into ravioli and tortellini for the soup we would be serving in the restaurant. Also, during our sophomore year we go down to café 101, this is the teacher cafeteria. In the teacher cafeteria we learn a lot about holding food for long periods of time and how to keep it fresh. We also learn about the time periods you can keep something frozen or refrigerated before it's spoiled. During our time in café 101, if were selected, we also get allergen awareness training. I got my certificate for allergen training the summer between my junior and senior year. I now have under my belt my servsafe certification, allergen awareness training, certificates for participation in skillsUSA (restaurant service), and my certificate for level one prostart. For my senior year I plan to finish Porstart level two and return to