Culinary Class provides unique experiences to students

At HC, students have always been offered a wide variety of electives. Classes ranging all the way from Physical Education to AP Art History can be taken by HC students. One of these electives includes Food Nutrition and Culinary Arts taught by HC teacher Regan Satterwhite.

“I teach the whole culinary arts pathway, which starts with Foods and Nutrition and Advanced Foods and Nutrition,” Satterwhite said. “After that they move on to Culinary Arts 1 for a single semester and then the next semester you would take Culinary Arts 2.”

In her culinary class, Satterwhite teaches all aspects of cooking and does a variety of activities to help her students learn and practice the curriculum.

“The curriculum we use comes with a bunch of demo videos, and so we’ll learn about it and practice it in the lab,” Satterwhite said. “Periodically, we will either offer a lunch for the teachers or they can place an order and then, we’ll also cater for sports teams and meetings after school. The athletic director sometimes asks us to cook for coach’s meetings.” 

Not only is Satterwhite’s passion for cooking evident, but many of her students feel the same. Cooking to some may seem like a chore or maybe even boring. However, HC students in Satterwhite’s culinary class couldn’t disagree more.

“Well, the first word that comes to mind when I think about this class is ‘fun’. HC Culinary Arts student Alaysia Godfrey said. “It’s just fun to cook and do different recipes you wouldn’t usually do at home.”

On top of this, cooking is a household skill everybody will use at some point in their life. It’s no wonder this class is extremely popular among HC students, it serves as both a break from your traditional classroom, but also introduces HC students to a sliver of adulthood.

“I’m not a really good cook and since I have done this class I’ve started to like cooking way more,” HC Culinary Arts student Samira Johnson said. “It’s not that hard if you just do your work and put effort into it. You’ll probably have a lot more fun than you think you would in this class.”

Getting involved in the Culinary Arts at HC is easy. Just as you would for any other elective, you enroll in the class at the beginning of the school year. Then you’re all set on your HC Culinary experience.

“You do not have to want to be a chef to be in this class,” Satterwhite said. 

Satterwhite and her students believe that many new students would enjoy the class, even if it is a bit difficult. 

“It’s hard,” Godfrey said. “You have to get used to reading a recipe and being able to cook in the right steps. It’s definitely worth it though, this class is really fun.”

Food Nutrition and Culinary Arts are just two of the many electives HC offers to its students.  Allowing students to explore more of the culinary world and healthy habits are what these classes are all about.