Kids cook classy cuisine

Michael Miller

Newport Harbor High School culinary students may learn the basics of

cooking, but they also study an equally valuable art -- hospitality.

For a week before the school’s Evening of the Arts, held last

Wednesday, students in Janet Dukes’ beginning and advanced cooking

class worked day and night, weekdays and weekends, to prepare a

sophisticated menu for the annual event. When the classes had

finished with the offerings -- including swordfish, shrimp on

skewers, gumbo, cheesecake, tiramisu and more -- they graced the

occasion as caterers.

“You have to be on task, be friendly, know how to manage your

clients,” said ninth-grader Miriam Gonzalez, 14, as she drizzled

white chocolate sauce onto a plate of strawberries Wednesday morning.

“Just remember to always smile.”

At the Evening of the Arts, held outdoors on the Newport Harbor

campus, Gonzalez and her classmates donned white chef coats and

tuxedos to serve a crowd of hundreds. The event, which spotlights the

best in Newport Harbor’s art, drama, music and dance programs, drew

more than 1,000 Newport Beach residents.

Each school department showed off the skills its students have

learned -- and in some cases brought with them -- over the course of

the past year. The culinary class demonstrated its versatility with a

four-part menu that covered Creole, Cuban and Mediterranean dishes

and an eclectic assortment of desserts.

“A lot of these recipes are ones they make in class,” said Dukes,

who started the culinary program at Newport Harbor six years ago.

“They’re doing mass quantities to see what it’s like to do a

production.”

Dukes paid for most of the food out of her own pocket, but she had

some valuable allies this year. Clayton Shurley, the owner of the

Real BBQ restaurant chain, lent refrigerators and an ice cream

freezer, while a local farm provided Dukes with 10 flats of

strawberries.

Revenues from the food sales on Wednesday went to reimburse Dukes

and to help pay for future equipment for the program. Dukes said that

in the future, she wants to replace the classroom’s food processors

and add silverware and trays.

The Newport Harbor culinary program is among the most heralded in

Southern California. In 2003 and 2004, the school placed highly in

the ProStart Culinary Cup, an annual event at Cal Poly Pomona. In

April, Dukes and her students attended classes at the California

Culinary Academy in San Francisco.

Dukes said the training pays off for her students, some of whom

enter the class having never cooked before.

“People go, ‘Wow, who made this food?’” she remarked. “And the

kids say, ‘We did.’”

* IN THE CLASSROOM is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot

education writer Michael Miller visits a campus in the Newport-Mesa

area and writes about his experience.