Soup’s On for the Hungry at FHS

For Culinary Arts students at Freehold High School, the biggest test is also the hardest to study for:  feed hundreds of people in only a few days' time, and make enough money to make a difference in the lives of thousands.

This week, the seniors aced the test, preparing hundreds of gallons of soup for the Empty Bowls fundraiser to raise money for the Food Bank of Monmouth County. Senior Samantha Kordelski orchestrated the event in conjunction with local artist Mil Wexler Kobrinski, 56, a Colts Neck Arts in Education teacher who had run similar fundraisers in the past.

Senior Dan Garcia sautees chicken over an open flame in the Five Star Kitchen.

“It’s a good way to incorporate art and help benefit the community,” Kobrinski said. “The empty bowl symbolizes that someone in our area is hungry, so it’s art and a reminder.”

As manager of the event, Kordelski enlisted art students to help create the ceramic bowls and planned the menu and kitchen prep for the 178 students in FHS’s Culinary Arts program. For her, the preparation started almost a month ago, as freshman students chopped and diced, sophomores sautéed and mixed, and juniors and seniors oversaw kitchen operations as they prepared the gourmet soups.

Meanwhile, Kobrinski enlisted students from around the Freehold Regional High School District and Monmouth County Vocational Schools to help create hundreds of ceramic bowls to sell, donating all of the clay and supplies and using her own kiln to fire the finished products.

Senior Naquasha Ferrar offers the daily special: a gourmet grilled chicken sandwich.

On Tuesday, the students began selling $5 bowls of soup and $10 ceramic decorative bowls, raising $475 in their first day and selling more than 100 bowls.

They expect their busiest day to be Friday, and hope to raise a few thousand dollars to give to the Food Bank. Kubrinski and the students both emphasized how important the donations are this year given the recession.

It’s been a lot of work for Sam and the students,” said cooking instructor Chef Toni Kowak. Together with two other Chefs, Kowak incorporated the fundraiser into the regular curriculum of soups, stocks, and sauces.

“We’ve been working on stocks and soups for weeks,” she said, “figuring out quantities and recipes. We’re big on giving back to the community, so we were happy to do this fundraiser here.”

The students worked with Kobrinski to secure food donations from Delicious Orchards and Whole Foods in Middletown for produce and baked goods; everything else was cooked from scratch, they said. All of the profits for the soup and bowls will go directly to the Food Bank.

It's one of many events the Culinary Arts students do each year, said Principal Linda Jewell.

“Out of all the community service at this school, and there’s a lot, the Culinary Arts program does the most,” said Principal Jewell. “They know how to take their talents and give them back to the community.”

Each week, the program sends meals to St. Peter's Church for their hot meal program. On Fridays, students cook hot dinners for the hungry in town that eat at the parish. And when someone in the community needs help, the students are always quick to offer their cooking expertise.

Diners that come in from outside of the school for cheap gourmet lunches are asked to wear visitor's passes while they munch.

"When someone close to the program died, we sent over weeks' worth of meals," Instructor Toni Kowak said. "The kids do all of that cooking themselves, and they become academic projects."

Culinary and hospitality colleges like Johnson & Wales and the Culinary Institute of America offer college credit for the students’ work on projects like Empty Bowls, Kowak said.

"It's really the truest authenticity test there is," said Jewell, referring to the project's ability to teach real-world skills. “This is the only place that kids are taking a full academic schedule and electing to the culinary arts on top of that,” she said. .”“Whatever other high school students are required to do, so are these kids."

For students like Kordelski, that means studying and adjusting recipe quantities for homework, taste-testing new foods on her family, and writing reports and presentations on her findings.  More than 95% of students go to culinary- or hospitality-focused colleges; a full 100% go onto higher education. Kordelski is interested in journalism, and maybe food journalism.

“We have kids going straight from this class to Honors English and AP Physics," Kowak said. "That's very different from vocational schools.

The brainy cooks at the Five Star will be serving up gourmet soups including Jersey Tomato, French Onion, Minestrone, Mushroom Barley, Butternut Squash, Chicken and Rice, and Split Pea for the rest of this week.

The Five Star Café is open every week from Wednesday through Friday,from 8:30-1:30. Entree prices are typically $5 and include dishes like filet mignon, pear tartlets, and gourmet salads and sandwiches.