Liberty North’s culinary program offers classes that not only teach students how to cook but the class also teaches valuable life skills. With enrollment coming up, these are some options for you to consider.

“Culinary teaches students how to handle stressful situations, follow a plan, and how to manage their time especially while doing large projects that take multiple days. It also teaches obvious skills like how to make a good sauce, how to cook chicken properly, or how to bake a nice fat chewy cookie. Obviously, those skills are taught but more of the big life skills that go around with implementing that,” culinary teacher Wendy Turner said.

North has two semester classes that can get students started early on their culinary journey.

“Liberty North offers two intro culinary classes, the first class is Intro to Culinary, which goes over many methods and techniques for cooking and baking with more regional tastes and recipes. The second class is International Culinary, International is an intro-level course that teaches techniques but the recipes are focused more on international flavors and cuisine from around the world,” culinary teacher Erica Iseminger said.

Turner has always had a passion for culinary arts but it wasn’t until she got into teaching that she realized her true passion.

“I’ve always loved to cook and it’s always been my jam but I didn’t want to own a restaurant or open a restaurant because I like to be at home. It’s also a demanding workplace and not a lot of time is not spent at home. When I decided to become a teacher, I realized this is definitely what I should do,” Turner said.

Iseminger has taught for many years and has just begun fully teaching culinary.

“I have been teaching for 10 years, I taught eight years in a middle school and taught some culinary but it was an exploratory class so it taught everything. This is my second year teaching just culinary at Liberty North,” Iseminger said.

Semester classes get to experience things like catering and public projects as well as growing and preparing fresh produce.

“One of the main projects offered in class are a breakfast box for the Liberty Education Foundation during the fall. We have done Kids Feeding Kids projects and then we have a new garden, and we have started a project that we plant things in the garden and are able to get some produce to use in our recipes,” Iseminger said.

North also offers a professional culinary class for those who want to advance their culinary skills.

“ProStart is a professional restaurant culinary program. Some of the projects that are done in ProStart are Kids Feeding Kids, Java Jam with the band, and basketball tournaments. We also cater to different needs around the school such as parent-teacher conferences, and dinners for the staff, organizations will reach out and we will cater to them as well,” Turner said.