Well into my third year of culinary at Newtown, I have come a long way, (my hair has gotten even better since freshman year!) JK, but for real; I have picked up lifetime skills that will go with me far into my life. I can confidently cut into anything from a chicken to an apple, julienne to quarters. I am very glad to have gotten exposed to proper knife skills. Probably the best thing I have gotten out of culinary is the confidence to prepare foods. Many people can be intimidated when it comes to preparing meals. I attribute this to primarily the snack shack, being thrown in and having to make the correct product because there were paying customers expecting their food.

            I’ve seen that transferred to when I make something on my own time. I will be like “yeah, why not? Let’s try it…” and see what happens. I am very glad I don’t have to rely on a microwave for my food.

            As for what I would like to see next semester, I think it would be kind of cool to have “cook-offs” like a mini version of our midterm. It would be an intense competition on maybe a block day per month where we have some ingredients and must create something by the end of class, for a grade. Sounds kinda fun to me, idk.  _bryce

Through the first four months of advanced, I would say that my skillset in the kitchen has improved as much as it did through a full year of culinary one and two. The workload is greater, and the tasks that must be done are more demanding than what I faced last year. The biggest thing I have learned so far is how to cook for others. In culinary one and two 90% of the time you are only cooking for yourself. The big change in advanced is that 90% of the time what you cook is going to somebody else. Cooking for others has made me more careful, and caused me to pay more attention to quality. I’ve learned how to make dishes appear better in presentation. Cooking for others has brought me a whole new set of skills. Be it the snack shack, paladar, feed the need, banquets, or staff events, I am constantly getting good experience making food for others. So far in advanced by technique has improved greatly as well. I know how to use new equipment in the kitchen, and have improved my skills with equipment I already knew of coming into the year. My work ethic has been improved because of advanced. I’ve learned how to persevere and grind through tasks that may be seem dull and unenjoyable, such as dicing onions or peeling potatoes. I’ve learned how to power through and complete tasks that may be difficult, such as butchering whole chickens or roasting peppers. Through this class I have learned how to focus and get things done even when it isn’t easy. Another important skill I have learned in advanced so far is how to work under stress and pressure. Especially in the snack shack, there are often times when tension is high and food needs to be produced under enormous amounts of pressure. I’ve learned how to settle the nerves and simply do what needs to be done. This ability to deliver under pressure is something that can translate and help me outside of the kitchen as well. It’s been a great start to the year for advanced and I look forward to the rest of the year.

- John Carlson

So far during culinary, I have learned to be a short order cook by working in the snack shack. Working the grill and fryer was a lot of fun and I wish there were more football and soccer games so I could work some more. By doing feeding the need, I have learned to put all different foods together and sauces on the spot. One thing I wish we did in advanced culinary was learn to make more foods. I know that we do paladar but sometimes the food is prepared from the day before. My fellow classmates and I were talking the other day and we feel that we should just be cooking more foods so we could learn some more. Michael Parker

Working the snack shack is often the same thing every time working either the grill or fryer. Whenever I am in there most of the kids have their hands in their pockets or they are on their phone, often they mistake the orders, or shout them out multiple times. Or even tell the people on the fryer about the sandwich that is needed for fat sandwiches.

Whenever I work the snack shack the kids that are there often don’t understand what to do and only a few kids do know what to do. Whenever I turn around the kids are often just standing around and eating all the food.

Jimmy Widmann Mrs. Hoagland 9/10/13 Snack Shack Blog Snack Shack Blog The snack shack was quite successful for this soccer game as there were no major errors and the game was decently busy. The only errors that were made were forgetting the bacon and hot chocolate in the kitchen before the game. Besides that everyone was working together and making sure that it was a successful night. I was working the register during the game and it was a very nice experience that I enjoyed a lot. I work as a cashier so I was good with the money and totaling peoples orders. I also enjoyed the aspect of seeing all the people at the game. One of my jobs as a cashier was to get the food for the customers once they had ordered and the rest of the people working did an excellent of keeping up with orders and at no time did we run out of anything. All in all it was a successful night and the only thing that we need to work on is our mise en place.

Jimmy Widmann Class 1 Culinary blogs: October October Snack Shack Blogs During my October snack shack workings I worked as a cashier. Each night everything went pretty smoothly. One of the nights was exceptionally busy as it was boys soccer senior night, and I noticed something that could make the snack shack run better. The fat sandwich station tends to get behind on orders and I believe it would be beneficial to train the people working that station before the games so that they know how to make each sandwich. At the boys soccer game on multiple occasions the person who was grilling had to go over to help the fat sandwich person, which simply slowed production. Another suggestion would be to assign everyone their position at the beginning of the week or something along those lines and have one day where those people train for the job that they have so that everyone can work more efficiently. Another suggestion is that we could keep a tally of which fat sandwich’s we sell the most of and then prepare one or two of the most popular sandwiches. This would be a good way to improve efficiency in the snack shack and make the customers happy.

Regarding the overall structure and flow of the snack shack enterprise, through my experiences working hotbox, fry station and cashier, I have found that everyone works relatively well together especially considering the amount of people in such a small area. Yes it is loud, and yes it is chaotic, but somehow, we all manage to get our work done with little to no problem. I think we are successful in making food that everyone enjoys, and I believe that we give the best service that anyone can ask from a team of high school students. That being said, I will now break it down to specific experiences that I have had during snack shack. 10/4-Working the fry station with Sam was an absolutely delightful experience. we got everything done quickly and had time to simply have fun. whenever something was needed, we would whip it up and get it into the hotbox or directly to the customer.The flow of the work station was perfect that night, however that was a very slow night. If that sort of relaxed mentality was brought into a football game rather than girls soccer or field hockey or whatever it may have been, we would have been blown out of the water, in way over our heads. Essentially, I believe that we must make sure that we are getting are work done first, and then worry about having fun or relaxing. This is not to say that we do not put the pedal to the metal in times of need, i just want to make sure that in the future, we continue to do the same things we are doing to ensure that we are successful in our efforts to raise money and turn a good profit. Work first, then play. 10/15-Working cashier is fun. The end. In all seriousness though, it is the second easiest job behind working beverages at the fridge. though it is important, after working cashier, i believe that there is way too much down time in comparison to the other jobs. I think that in the future, we should all look into finding more responsibilities for the cashier to complete while everyone else is working and the cashier seems to be sitting around. perhaps if we are not in the middle of a raging rush, the cashier may be able to sweep up or wipe down tables, to keep the "clean as we go" mentality alive. This would put a lot less stress on everyone at the end of the night, and would make the snack shack a lot more presentable to not only a health inspector if he indeed shows up at one of the events, but also to our paying, valued customers. 10/22- Fat Sandwiches can be stressful at times, due to the fact that you have a lot that you are responsible for, but i liked the pressure when i worked the fat sandwich station. that station above all others makes you feel like you are actually doing something culinary-related. It is also the only one where you can see the satisfaction on the customers face, or the uncertainty if you didn't do too well. regardless, I think that the fat sandwich station was my favorite out of all of the stations. Communication can be difficult, but once that is squared away it is smooth sailing for the seemingly quick night as you make fat sandwiches. We should, however, keep more of the low-fat sandwich ingredients in stock. we misse4d out on a lot of those this year. 10/25- While working the french fries/ hot dog/ hamburger/ cheeseburger hotbox, I found it to be extremely stressful. the communication of orders is ridiculous, as the quantity of items is always unclear. i found myself getting two or even three orders of fries when all that was needed was one order. It turned out alright that night due to the fact that there were 7 trillion french fry orders, but if that was a slow night, and not as many were ordered, we could've been in a bind with a large excess of french fries sitting around at the end of the night. If we could find a process that would highly beneficial for whomever it is working the front hotbox, but if the system we have is the only one in the cards then I guess we will just have to play it by year and hope for the best. K Thnx Bye

Ryan Rosenberger 11/1/13 The first time I worked snack shack, it was a lot of the new advanced culinary students first time as well. It was a very disorganized day, not many people understood how the snack shack ran. That’s when people with experience of the snack shack like Enea and I helped take control. It was a field hockey game, so it wasn’t too busy. And after a while, people finally got the hang of it and there was a groove yet again established. The amount of people that were running the snack shack was a good amount and every station had a worker. It was a semi-smooth run snack shack, but people just needed to get used to it and what it’s like. During this snack shack it was a soccer game so there was a decent amount of business going on. People had finally gotten their groove together and it was run smoothly. I did wrapping that time, and it was a busy night. Even though it was busy, we still got everything completed at a quick rate, and good-quality. We had a good supply on the dogs/burgers. But besides that, not much happened out of the ordinary; we cleaned up and got out in an orderly time. During this snack shack it was a soccer game so there was a decent amount of business going on. I did register that time, and it wasn’t much of a busy night. It wasn’t too busy so were there wasn’t much to do. But I do remember the fries being frozen over that day and they came out not too presentable. It could be a problem because we could potentionally loose future customers for having bad products. This was the first football game I worked and it was extremely busy. We sold everything we had and yet still ran smooth. Everyone was put into their jobs and it seemed to work out simply. I worked cashier and it was okay, I also was stationed next to the fries, which seemed to be extremely busy. For a football game it was good but, made a little too much food near the end. Besides that we also got out on time and it was clean and trouble-free. This football game we were extremely unprepared. We were down people and sadly it was due to Enea and I. That night I worked register with Nicole and Jackson. It was a busy night and most things were sold. I remember selling a lot of hot chocolate and a problem was we couldn’t find the rest of the cups. We sent Tate to go find them when in reality they were right under the middle counter. That was just a waste of time especially when we were down people. However, we all got out on time and it was a pleasent run.

Enea Musaka Class 1 October 31, 2013 The last snack shack I worked was a football night. I was wrapper again. We were well prepared and on top of things. The hotbox was always full and there were plenty of hamburgers and cheeseburgers waiting to be ordered. I think by this point, almost everyone working that night had worked at least 3 previous times. Once somebody got a station they stood there and ran it. The one suggestion I gave to the people taking the customers’ orders was to keep the line moving. At points people couldn’t order because others were blocking the window. We shutdown at a good time and didn’t really spend time cleaning. We gave it a quick wipe down, but some people stayed after to clean. Enea Musaka Class 1 October 31, 2013 This was my first football game since advanced culinary last year. If it was anything like last year, I expected to be in for a long night, but it went surprisingly smooth. Everybody did their job and this meant customers were getting their food faster, in turn, moving the line faster. I was working hot box this night and it went really good. We prepped well so the hotbox was full the entire night. For the most part we were only dropping fries. I strayed from my station at times because it got so slow. The one thing we forgot to do was fill the cups with the different sauces. Cleaning went well. Everybody helped and we managed to clean and be out of there in under 10 minutes. Enea Musaka Class 1 October 31, 2013 The first time I worked snack shack, for most of the people there, it was their first time. It was a field hockey game so right off the start we knew it wasn’t going to be hard. I was wrapper and I feel I did a good job staying at my station and doing my work. I was criticized for working too slow, but I did my job. I really hated putting the gloves on. Once your hands got wet, they were near impossible to put on. The thing we regretted the next day was we didn’t clean. When we went up to the next day, it was in bad shape. The hot chocolate had gone bad and everything that was spilled on the counter had caked on overnight and was very difficult to remove. One suggestion that was made was to put marinara sauce in the small sauce cups and leave a bunch in the hotbox. Enea Musaka Class 1 October 31, 2013 The second snack shack I worked was for boys’ soccer. It must have been a big game, probably a rival team, because as soon as half-time hit we got bombarded. It was a struggle to keep up with the crowd. The location of the menus really needs to be changed. I’ve noticed that fat sandwiches aren’t selling quite like they used to. I was wrapper again and had a hard time keeping up with what was being put in front of me. At one point a second person hopped in and started to help me wrap. Cleaning went a lot better this time. Everyone had something to clean and everyone did it. We were able to get out of there a lot quicker thanks to this. Enea Musaka Class 1 October 31, 2013 The second boys soccer game I worked didn’t go quite as suspected. Apparently, they weren’t doing so well. This really affected the size of the crowd which affected the snack shack. I was working hotbox again and this time, I think we over prepped. We made like 2 bags of mac and cheese bites, had 2 full trays of chicken tenders, mozzarella sticks, and onion rings. By the end of the night there was a lot of stuff left over. We closed a bit early because there weren’t a lot of customers. Everyone did a nice job cleaning. We should really do a specialty burger like the Monster Burger more often, especially if we know it’s going to be a big game.

This snack shack was a Friday. One of those nights were everyone has to hustle to feed the masses. One thing that was good was the atmosphere and communication. Everyone in the shack was happy and did their parts willingly. However I did notice a lot of station jumping. The guy on hot box would one second be there and the next be outside or near the fries. The main thing I learned from that one instance was that each station is vital for the shack to run. For example, while the hotbox was unattended orders were coming in for chicken finger, etc. Other than that the night was smooth and clean-up was quick.

This night was a really organized and flowing session of snack shack. I worked the grill and everything was smooth. All of the other stations were well kept through-out the night. Given that it was a slow night, it wasn’t hard to keep it clean but it was a large improvement from the snack shack run on the first night. At closing everyone helped and we were out of the shack in fashionable manor. I contribute that to us dumping the dishes into the sink and leaving. It was an effective way to get out but the clean up the next day was not fun.

This was my last snack shack and it happened to land on a football game, we knew it was going to be crazy witch it was. When I arrived I immidetly had to start making burgers! Laying the meat out into the deep hotel pans, each box of meat had 80 burgers in it according to nuemyer. I made 4 boxes! That’s 320 burgers! When we started making them we never stopped! There was always at least a burger or a hot dog on the grill. When I was on grill I was also helping Luke, he was my partner on grill duty that night. We probably made $5,000 and we made almost every burger and a whole bag of hot dogs! It was broadcasted again by cptv and it was a blast. Overall it was a good ending to a season in the Snack Shack!Michael B.

It was a Tuesday night and I knew I had snack shack again, it was a field hockey game so we weren’t expecting anyone to show up. I was on grill for the 4th time in a row, as you could tell by now I like to be on grill duty, but anyway the grill was easy as usual and sometimes slow but I still had a good time overall. We probably made about $50 and sold about 1 dozen burgers and 2 hotdogs, when we closed at half time more people had arrived and wanted food but we sadly had to close for the night. Michael b.

This was the second time it was a soccer Game, soccer games are usually slow but this one was a decently busy one. It’s started off really slow but then towards half time it sped up a little bit and towards the end it got busy but we had to really have to close when it got busy. I covered grill again because since it was my third time under the hood I was use to the basics and what to do to make things run as smoothly as possible. Next time I work I hope I can get grill again because I think it’s fun and its easy and not confusing at all. It’s very straight forward too. Over all it was a smooth fun time in the snack shack on my second girl’s soccer game. Michael b.

Snack shack #2 It was a nice Friday the 11th and I knew I had another snack shack coming up and the day beforehand was my first so I already knew what it would be like. Wrong! I forgot it was a football game so there was going to be a good expected crowd there that night. First thing I did when I got there was making the hot chocolate with Connor. We went down to the classroom and boiled up some water and emptied it into the cambro along with some hot chocolate mix. We only made one batch because we weren’t expecting a million people to buy hot chocolate. When we got back to the snack shack we started some prep and then we hung out for about 20 minutes then we were on the grind! It started with a slow but consistent crowed then it slowly got heavier and heavier by the minute. I was on grille again so there was not one minute that I wasn’t either checking the hot box for burgers or making some. John and Albert had the hot box so most of the time they would tell me if we needed more burgers. The fry station was a little chaotic because people FORGOT they are not supposed to take the fry basket to the sheet pan. The sheet pan should go to them. But overall it was a very fast paced night. We successfully made at least $3,000 and served at least 2,000 happy customers.Michaelb.

Snack shack#1 On Thursday the 10th it was my first time in the snack shack this year and forever as a matter a fact. When I was ready to come down to school I was a bit nervous because I didn’t know what to expect. When I got to school I entered the snack shack and I was greeted by Connor Murphy. As soon as we were all settled we were down and ready to go. We went back to the culinary room to grab supplies and then we put it inside of Jimmy’s mess of a car. I took the job of grille, I knew this would be fine for me because I’m not worried about cooking burgers and hot dogs I could do it in my sleep! It was only girl’s soccer so there was no crowd at all. In total about 30 people ordered food so I thought it was an excellent night to slowly get my feet wet and get a taste for the snack shack and how it works. Overall I thought it was a first fun and great experience with some friends in the snack shack! Michaelb.

Nicole O Football Game Snack Shack After only having worked the snack shack at a girl’s soccer game and field hockey game, working a football game was extremely different. From the minute that we opened at 6:30 sharp, there were constantly people ordering food. We had three people doing money, which was very helpful because that made the line move faster. By this point in time everyone is pretty comfortable with the snack shack so it ran very smoothly. The only thing that we should have done before we opened was prepare the sauces (such as honey mustard) instead of doing that after we opened when we were trying to serve people. Also, we should have advertised the pop-up more because many people did not know that we had that until after they bought their food and they wished that they had known it before. Overall the night went exceptionally well other than the fact that it was freezing out and I couldn’t feel my hands by the end of the night. There is really not much we have to improve on, and I can’t wait to work my next snack shack.

This snack shack experience was decent but definatly not the best. We had improved from the last time snackshack was run, but there were still some flaws. First off everyone was way to chatty and the orders could not be heard. Second, the orders came up short a couple times and everyone was asking questions to each other. Third, there, for some reason, was people arriving at 4-8:30 and the people that arrived from 5:30 basically left at 8 which just didn't seem fair and/or professional for advanced culinary students. If we can improve these minor flaws, I personally beleive that the snack shack will run much more smoothly and things can be done much better. Also as a compliment both teachers did a great job running the snack shack and doing just as much work as the students.

-David B.

This was yet again another great snack shack experience. Unfortunately there was not many customers the night we did the pop-up tent, but through it we were able to gain some further experience. This event gave us the ability to run the snack shack in an environment not yet done by us yet, even though it was just merely a couple feet away. The idea to cook mac n' cheese and pulled pork was a great idea. I personally believe that it should be served on the regular, we just happened to not have such a great night. The teamwork was great, everyone worked well together, jobs were taken care of professionally and everybody put in there effort to make this experience as easy and professional as possible. The only critique I have is that when an order is placed, the station making that order needs to report that back, not doing so may result in further problems. I am glad that I had attended this snack shack event to gain further experience and because it was much more coordinated than the last.

-David B.