Happy New Year! I hope your year is off to a fantastic start! Here in the Whaler Café things are going well. We ended the year by preparing meals for 50 local families and teamed up with the New London Police Department and the New London Fire Department to help distribute them along with toys we received from our toy drive. There was also a push to collect coats, hats and gloves this year. Overall, I think we did a great job and look forward to doing even better next year.

In the classroom we have just finished up our plated dessert section where I showed my students how to make a chocolate lava cake. Using three sauces and some ice cream, they learned how to plate it up like we do in restaurants.

This week, students are getting ready for midterms where they will have to make two bagels, two dinner rolls, two flatbreads and two pretzels. Midterms will be graded by outside chefs so hopefully my students will gain an appreciation of the culinary arts and gain some insight from the chefs.

If you haven’t been following us lately I need to catch you up on our partnership with ShopRite of New London. Earlier in the year we met with store owner Ken Capano to discuss ways we could work together in hopes of helping to fund our program. We started out selling student-made garlic and rosemary focaccia bread with great success. In the not so distant future we will start preparing meals that will be sold at ShopRite under the Whaler Café. logo. If you are in the area, please stop in and check out our products and help support the culinary arts program. This is a win-win for both organizations and a great way for our students to understand cooking in a production kitchen, which could potentially get them ready to work in the culinary field.

Going forward this year, the level-one students will go on to learn how to cook full meals including a starch, vegetable, sauce and protein. Once again we will have outside chefs evaluate their food for their final grade. They will have to make two identical plates with the four components. As we advance the program, the upper-level students will use the skills they’ve already learned to make food from all over the world.

This is always a favorite section of mine to teach, because when students first come into the class, they are afraid to eat anything, and now they are more comfortable. The upper-level classes will push them out of their comfort zone again, but by the time we are done they will be highly knowledgeable and comfortable with regional cuisine.

If you would like to follow along with what we are doing, I post on Facebook under “Whaler Café.” Here you will find pictures of what we are doing each week! We are also frequently on ABC’s “Good Morning Connecticut.” The next time you can find us there is Jan. 21 at 7:15 and 7:45 a.m.

“From the Whaler Cafe” presents updates and occasional recipes from the culinary arts program at New London High School. The program is helmed by chef instructor Thomas Johnson, who welcomes questions from readers at JohnsonT@newlondon.org.