Everyday in room two, during first and second hour, foods teacher Rebecca Just gets the chance to work with students who plan on going pro in what Just does everyday: cooking. Just teaches Foods I, Foods II and International Cuisine, but the class she has the most aspiring chefs in is Culinary Arts. In Culinary Arts, students get the chance to learn about the food service industry and professional food service skills, along with tips on hospitality and some kitchen math. The class goes into more detailed cooking skills than the other classes Just teaches.

“I think it’s a good stepping stone, it gives them some background before college,” Just said. “It’s actually a college level course, but we have to abbreviate it a lot.”

The students in culinary arts get the chance to learn how to make a variety of dishes, many of which are far more complicated than the dishes made in the other cooking classes offered.

“My favorite thing to cook are any kind of pastry sweets,” junior Lacey Rorie said. “I’ll probably be a pastry chef.”

To further their culinary education, many of the future chefs plan on attending a culinary arts school for college. Even though she didn’t attend a culinary arts school, Just offers recommendations to her students who want to go to one, although some of her students already know where they want to go.

“I really want to go to Johnson and Lloyd Culinary School,” junior Angel Husgen said.

Many of the students who want to be chefs have known what they wanted to be for a few years. Cooking is something they love to do, and what they want to go do for the rest of their lives.

“It’s like art,” Husgen said. “I just like to make stuff that tastes good.”