They used to call it Home Economics, then it was Home and Consumer Science, now the classes have expanded into a variety of different, specific topics. At Shoshoni High School, one of the favorite courses is simply called Culinary Arts.
Mistalyn Steffen is the instructor. She is in her first year at Shoshoni after volunteering for many years, planning and operating the hospitality rooms at the various wrestling and basketball tournaments and the Class 1-A/2-A West Regional Track championships held at Shoshoni.
The Culinary Arts curriculum guide opens with this paragraph.
”Develop a comprehensive culinary arts curriculum that aligns with industry standards and incorporates hands-on training in food preparation, baking, and pastry arts. This may include currently published resources and “homegrown” resources.”
“Homegrown resources” is a thinly veiled reference to the creativity that Steffen brought to the program. She is a talented cook, with many talented friends who help with the hospitality rooms.
The stories among basketball and wrestling coaches, bus drivers, officials, and media are legendary when it comes to the Shoshoni Hospitality Room. Many claim it is the best in the state.
The same talents that led to that reputation lend themselves well to students just learning to cook, plan menus, write recipes, and do it all at the highest sanitary standards.
“We work on baking, cooking skills, and sanitation,” Steffen said. “We make it a work-based class.”
Culinary Arts is the fastest-growing portion of the United States economy. The food service industry is currently the second-largest employer among all job categories in the US, with an estimated 15.7 million jobs in the industry.
“I don’t know that any of these kids will go into the culinary or hospitality world,” Steffen said. “But it gives them experience to cook and take care of themselves and their future families.”
Steffen’s section of high school Culinary Arts has 13 students enrolled. They’re currently all girls, but she’s had boys interested in the class.
“I wanted to get experience and have fun with it,” Macy Kasper, a culinary student, said.
Last week, the class was busy just before lunch on Wednesday morning, preparing Valentine’s Day cookies and pastries.
The girls were in a line along a large metal production table, mixing chocolate, cherry frosting, and putting the final touches on rice crispy bars. Sampling is part of the fun of the class, but Steffen regulates the munching until the work is complete.
Her room is a large classroom facing the courtyard between the two east-facing wings of the high school, with a clear view of the football field and track.
Steffen is proud of her equipment, which includes a couple of outdoor propane grills that are the delight of track coaches each spring.
Inside, she has a couple of high-tech cooking hoods complete with fire-suppression systems in the event of a grease fire. It looks a bit overdone to the casual observer, but the equipment in her room is all designed with student safety in mind.
Along the west side of the room is a pantry. It wasn’t originally designed as a pantry when the school was constructed a few years ago, but necessity is the mother of invention in a small school.
“The side of the room facing the hall was originally going to be a trophy case,” Steffen said. “I needed more storage space, so I covered the glass with construction paper, added more shelves, and we store supplies where the trophies were going to go.”
Many students realize the real-world connections a culinary arts class can have with their future, especially kids heading off to college for the first time. College students are notoriously bad eaters. Learning how to cook, clean, and maintain a kitchen is a life skill that everyone can benefit from.
“I like the experience of cooking and learning to live on my own in college,” Shoshoni senior Brenna Metzler said.
Metzler is headed to Chadron State University next fall on a softball scholarship. Once she leaves the dorms and the school cafeteria for life off campus, these skills will become paramount.
Steffen teaches an introductory sixth-grade class with 13 students and a seventh-grade section with eight, including three life skills students.
The Career and Technical Education (CTE) offerings at Shoshoni are open to every student. Special education teachers and aides are in the class to assist with special needs students who thoroughly enjoy the many CTE offerings that Shoshoni has sprinkled throughout the middle and high school curriculum.
Rachel Rapp, a science teacher working next door and the FBLA Sponsor, drops in often to help with the class and with the demands of the hospitality room.
At Shoshoni, thinking outside the box is practiced so often that many wonder if there ever was a box to begin with.
Steffen teaches with a Professional Instruction Certificate from the Wyoming Standards Teaching Board.
Sometimes being excellent at what you do just gets you more work. That’s the case with Mistalyn Steffen and the upcoming Class 2-A West Regional Basketball Tournament at Riverton High School.
Riverton’s outstanding culinary arts teacher, Kelli Gard, fed hundreds at the Ron Thon Hospitality Room and will run the room again for the Class 4-A West Regional Wrestling tournament. For the Class 2-A tournament, Riverton High School isn’t in session on Thursday and Friday of the tournament.
Riverton Activities Director Max Mills is familiar with the work Mistalyn did at Shoshoni when he was the Activities Director at Fremont 24. He asked her to come across the valley to Riverton to run the hospitality room out of Kelli Gard’s classroom.
It will be a challenge, but challenges are what Mistalyn Steffen is all about.
Other challenges the culinary arts department is responsible for at Shoshoni are running the concessions operations for the district, meaning volleyball, football, basketball, and wrestling. Various classes and clubs man the concession stand throughout the year under the auspices of the culinary arts department.
Steffen will also have students competing in Skills USA Competitions, and if that wasn’t enough, she works with the Fremont 24 food services department to accommodate students in helping in the school cafeteria.
Cookies, cakes, bread, grilled meat, complete meals, and all the planning, preparation, and follow-up this takes on a personal or large scale are skills students in the Culinary Arts program at Shoshoni will take with them for the rest of their lives.
Some hospitality rooms consist of donuts, a few sandwiches, and some bags of chips. You won’t find that at Shoshoni.
Culinary Arts; it’s a delicious elective.