The culinary arts students had their hands full after they were asked to cater Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman, Sharon Bulova’s holiday party on Jan. 19. The event took place at the Fairfax County Government Center in Fairfax, Virginia. Many familiar faces were there including Superintendent Jack Dale, Assistant Principal Vince Randazzo, as well as various other members of the school board; altogether approximately 500 to 800 people attended.
The food was plentiful and of wide variety; there was everything, from Chinese fried rice to Moroccan couscous, all set up on buffet-style tables. The majority of the food was cooked by AHS culinary arts students, but some was also donated by their families or by restaurants and businesses such as Heidelberg Bakery, which donated 200 French pastries to the event.
It was a six hour ordeal, from 2:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., and the 22 culinary arts students who catered the event worked tirelessly throughout.
“We learned how to cater, deal with customers that are in a hurry and to work at a fast pace,” said junior Michael Pena, one of the caterers.
The culinary arts department was paid $1,000 for their services and culinary arts teacher, Chef Christine Gloninger, known around AHS as Chef G., said that “it was a huge success” and that they “were asked to do other catering events because of it.”
The whole thing was somewhat of a community effort, due to the Fairfax County Fire Department’s help transporting the culinary arts department’s food and equipment to and from the Fairfax County Government Center. The FCFD did this by using a huge fifteen-seat van and stuffing it completely with the food and equipment needed to make the event a success.
It took hard work, organization and lots of cooperation to make the event work, but the students definitely seem to have benefitted from the whole experience. Junior Henry Cooper, a caterer summed up the event’s outcome for students saying “I learned how to make great food for great people who do something for this county.”
