Bowie Culinary Arts is known for it’s luncheons and their annual events. This year, Culinary hosted a Culinary Winter Comfort Buffet for the PTSA. Though for the most part, luncheons are meant to raise money for the organization, this was a lunch just for teachers and teacher appreciation paid for by the PTSA.

“We get hired by the school district to make dinner for the whole staff,” senior second year Janelle Seay said. “Basically, it’s a holiday thing for all of the staff members. We want to show our appreciation best we can. It was actually completely free for teachers. I liked seeing all of my teachers come to see what we do in culinary and enjoying our food.”

This year, the focus for the theme was more on winter holidays and decorations with simple, likable, foods.

“We try to elevate the classic dishes,” senior Angel Reyes said. “This year we served turkey and ham, different dips, meatballs, tomato soup, mac and cheese, and lot’s of vegetables just to name a few.”

The second years always take over the menus and making the big decisions. Though the themes are different every year, the role of the second years doesn’t change.

“Themes are different every year,” Chef Winemiller said. “Four people designed the menus this year, normally it’s less, and one person chooses the theme. In a perfect world I just oversee what everyone is doing and helping out as little as I can. Bottom line the food has to go out the door. If a person doesn’t get their work done I’ll have to end up doing it.”

Creating the menus is an extremely challenging task so the second years split up the different foods being served as well as the different jobs on the big day.

“I was on appetizers,” Seay said. “ I wrote all of the menus for them so that was my service station. If I wasn’t doing appetizers I’d probably be in the dining room working on buffet. This year I was much more in charge, which is exciting. ”

The buffet is a new idea that isn’t normally used at the luncheons. The luncheons have more of a formal feel to them but the purpose of the PTSA lunch was for more of a warm and simple feeling.

“This year I was in charge of the buffet,” Reyes said. “I honestly really didn’t like it that much because there were too many people and it was all backed up. I’d rather be in the kitchen making stuff. I liked seeing my teachers happy but I prefer to just be behind the scenes. ”

Though this lunch is much simpler than luncheons there are still reasons for more concern.

“We really had to prove ourselves this time because last event didn’t go too well,” Seay said. “There were lot’s of problems mainly in the kitchen because the first years didn’t know what they were doing and us second years weren’t taking enough charge of our assigned first years especially in the kitchen.”

Concerns range from culinary students all the way to Chef himself.

“I do like seeing the faculty enjoy themselves and having a good time,” Chef Winemiller said. “However, my least favorite part is that there is always a chance that something goes wrong and service just completely falls apart. I also really hate losing money, because we have a set budget so it’s even more complicated. But hey, if they hire us, we cook. It’s that simple.”

Bowie Culinary Arts take pride in the effort that they put into their meals. They work hard every year creating fresh and difficult dishes for the satisfaction of others. Though students and faculty may not be able to see all the work that goes on behind the scenes in the kitchen, they most definitely can taste it in the food that is set in front of them.