INGLESIDE, Texas — Ingleside Independent School District has a state-of-the-art culinary kitchen for students looking to become professional chefs.
Students there can take culinary courses in their 1500 sq. ft. kitchen equipped with three pizza ovens, a deep fryer, an industrial stove and much more.
"Most of the kids that do take our first year class, it's just because they want to learn how to cook," said Ingleside ISD Culinary Arts instructor Monica Kindervater. "They're not doing a lot of cooking at home, they just want that one-on-one on cooking."
Kindervater said the chefs-in-training learn the basics of food safety, and their course work consists of understanding food preparation as well as restaurant business management and marketing.
"This my second time taking this course, I didn't know about it my freshman year," said junior Wryder Griffith
"And I kind of joined it my freshman year out on a limb just because I needed something to do and I fell in love with like the environment, like being around the kitchen," said sophomore Cheyenne Davis.
And from the books to the kitchen, the students apply what they learn, from baking and cutting, to cooking food.
"This week is stock, sauces and soups," said Kindervater.
"And we have baked cookies and made sheet cakes of carrot cake and chocolate sheet cakes and a lot of other stuff," said Griffith.
"And by the end of next week they will have three soups down," said Kindervater.
The students said the skills they learn at school don't stop in the classroom.
"I'll bake, I'll make dinner just like recipes that I have learned here at school, I'll take home and make for my family," said Davis.
The goal of the course is to encourage students to become a chef or pursue hospitality management.
"If you are really interested in culinary arts, come see me and we will find a way to get you into our program," said Kindervater.
The students earn their food-handlers permit in the program, and next year the district will pursue the certification needed to run a professional kitchen.
