After seven weeks of cooking, learning how read a recipe, how to measure ingredients, how to chop vegetables, how to mix, toss, saute, bake and roast, it was time for these fifth graders to put it all together and cook dinner for their family and friends.

There was a lot of excitement on our last day of class, not only for the guests that were coming the kids, but for the amount of food we had to prepare. We were making pasta with home-made tomato sauce and turkey sausage and strawberry shortcake for dessert.

“We have to chop four onions?” asked Christopher Rameriz, seeing the ingredients lined up on the prep table.

“Yes, we have to double our recipes,” I told him and the others.

Yet they were undaunted and dove right in.

I had brought the swimming goggles to help prevent the onion tears, which helped in some cases. But not for Sofia Rivera: “Why does the onion smell go right through the goggles?” she lamented. We tried tightening the goggles, but in the end, she tossed them aside, preferring to soldier on and bear the onion vapors bare-eyed.

Once again, Genesis Bautista was the super star onion chopper, demonstrating her mastery of the technique that chefs use that she was shown at the first class. All the students did a creditable job, and Christopher peeled and chopped the garlic quickly and efficiently.

Some jobs everyone wants to do, and one of them was grating the parmesan cheese. I had never seen a box grater used quite that way, with one child grating a chunk of cheese on each side.

Ezinne Ekeabu took on the job of sauteing the turkey sausage, and carefully made sure the pink turned to brown on each side.

The basil was cut in chiffanade, a French term that they all loved pronouncing and practicing.

Once the onion and garlic was sauteed, Miss Belinda supervised the addition of the cans of tomatoes, basil, thyme and chicken stock, and the sauce was set to simmer.

Time to move on to our dessert.

Again, everyone wanted to chop the strawberries, in part because they wanted to eat them!

Scarlett Godoy just could not help herself and popped on in her mouth.

“We have guests and we need them,” Ezinne scolded her.

We sprinkled the strawberries with sugar and set them to macerate.

Then a team was dispatched to set up the technology room where we would hold our party, laying out tablecloths, drinks, plates and silverware. Back in the kitchen Amelia Barragan and Christopher worked with me to prepare the biscuits. Both loved the task of working the butter into the dry ingredients.

“Oh Miss Maureen, I love this!” said Amelia.

“This is so satisfying!” said Christopher.

Once the mixture was crumbly, and we added the milk and all the kids wanted to scoop out biscuits, and into the oven they went.

Everything was coming together nicely, the kids set up an assembly line to prepare the strawberry short cake, with one child slicing the biscuit, others spooning on the strawberries and yet another topping with a dollop of yogurt.

And then it was time to serve the guests.

How rewarding it was to hear the favorite meals from the kids, and especially since everyone had a different favorite: “The breakfast burritos… no the Salmon with Spinach and Cream…. No the chilcken with Olives and Apricots and Cauliflower.”

The icing on the cake was when Scarlett told us she was making the yogurt parfait at home with the recipe she learned in class last semester. She added chocolate syrup on hers, which wasn’t part of our recipe, but I could understand the addition, especially for a dessert. Her dad told us she also made Sloppy Joes with him at home, which is another recipe she learned in cooking class.

And Sofia told us she makes scrambled eggs for her mom also makes coffee for her dad, detailing all the steps of how she does it, from putting in the filter, adding three scoops of coffee, filing the pot to the water line, letting it brew and then adding the cream to his cup and stirring. Her parents smiled with pride.

And that is what it is all about. Getting these kids to learn the basics of cooking, so that they can cook at home and share meals with their families. You never really know if these students are absorbing the lessons or just forgetting everything as soon as class is done,

To hear they were making our recipes at home, that was magical for me.