Junior Aarden Dick actually cooks for a job at the Holiday Inn Select. He also enjoys cooking at home, in his free time, and for his family.

“I’d have to say my best dish is between the butter corn squash soup, chicken cordon bleu, and the sausage stuffed pork loin with a mushroom sauce,” said Dick.

Dick has been cooking for about three months. “It’s fun being a cook, and I’m pretty good at it,” he said.

However, cooking does not come without its mishaps too.

“There was an instance when I made three hundred burgers and then knocked them over and had to start completely over. Burning your roue is pretty bad too,” said Dick.

Dick is registered for an American Culinary Federation cooking contest and wants to be on “Best Teen Chef.”

“It makes me feel accomplished to make something out of nothing,” said Dick.

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There are many students at BRMHS that love to cook, and while cooking may be considered as a girl’s thing, there are some male enthusiasts. One of them is Dat Hoang who is 18 and in the 11th grade.

His favorite cuisine is pho noodles (originally a mixture of medicinal herbs combined with soup/noodles that exuded a very pleasant aroma on a more modest budget much like our “poor boys”). He enjoys preparing beef, chicken, pork, and shrimp. He also likes to cook vegetables, along with duck, and eggs.

To Dat, cooking is an art form he uses to express his creative abilities. He identifies his character with the cultural background that influences his food; this cultural identity is Vietnamese. Dat believes that exploring the flavors that portray his personality makes cooking fun.

Although Dat was teased for not having the best English when he was younger, nobody is making fun of his cooking. He is also very productive and functional when it comes to using food. “I use cooking (dishes) as collateral or sometimes for mutual benefits for friends,” he said.

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Students at Baton Rouge Magnet High School carry on with their business of classes and homework to prepare them for college and a career, they often forget some of the essentials in life. One of these essentials is food, which usually requires cooking, a skill that not many students have.

Tony Vingiello and Brandon Canizaro both have this skill along with many other things. They are both seniors at BRMHS, they play tennis, they’ve worked at restaurants, and they have some Italian heritage. As many Italians do, they love to eat and they love to cook.

“I cook because when I want something to eat besides cereal and when I don’t want to go out, I’ve got to get creative for survival,” said Vingiello.

He added “The Food Network is probably what triggered my interest in food. It’s the experimentation and combination of simple ingredients that makes it fun.”

Canizaro started cooking because of slightly different reasons.

“My mom works late, so I try to help. I’ve helped around the kitchen a little since I was about nine, but I started really cooking later,” he said.

Canizaro believes that his best dish is chicken marsala, while Vingiello thinks eggs benedict is his best.

“I basically just combine whatever is in the fridge,” said Vingiello.

Cooking of course can always come with a few small disasters, especially when someone is just starting off and inexperienced.

“I once left a pan on the stove to heat it up too long, then I poured oil on it and it caught fire. It really scared me at the time, but now I look back at laugh at the incident,” said Canizaro.

Vingiello remembers his sister catching a towel on fire when he was young, but the only incident he personally experienced was a cut finger.

The skills they are learning now are sure to be useful and satisfying for each of them in the future.

“A warm feeling in my belly is enough satisfaction for me,” said Vingiello.