Norwich ― Ask a high school senior about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and you might hear about canceled sports and plays, remote learning or mask mandates.

Norwich Free Academy senior Liang “Lili” Smith had a much different answer.

“It was funny, because that’s when the grocery stores had all those weird shortages,” Smith said. “There were weird flour shortages and everything. Such weird shortages. People were worried about the toilet paper shortage, but I was like, ‘No, the food shortages.’”

During the pandemic, Smith, 18, of Preston, honed the cooking skills her mother, Maria Smith, had instilled in her since childhood.

Smith will graduate from NFA on June 9 and head to Providence to attend Johnson & Wales University to study culinary arts. She has taken all nine NFA culinary classes over the years and works part time at The Baker’s Dozen on West Town Street in Norwich. She also volunteers for NFA’s Project Outreach, mostly choosing service at the St. Vincent de Paul Place soup kitchen.

Smith also volunteered to teach young elementary school students in her hometown how to make easy recipes in the microwave. Her favorite is “mac and cheese.”

“You get a bowl of water, elbow macaroni and salt, cook it for five to seven minutes,” she said. “Drain the pasta, add milk, cheese, pepper and then heat it up again and it’s mac and cheese. It’s so good. It takes the same amount of time as from a box mix, but it’s not from a box. There’s just something about the microwave. All in one bowl.”

Smith recently served as executive chef in her Brickview Restaurant class, which won the program’s Restaurant War competition, serving a four-course meal to staff, local restaurateurs and community members.

Smith plans to major in baking and pastry arts, and she loves baking cakes because she gets to decorate them.

“I like making the food that looks unreal to eat, that looks like it’s art and looks like it shouldn’t be edible,” she said.

The youngest of four children of Maria and Michael Smith, all home-schooled by their parents, Smith grew up cooking her mother’s native Italian food. Her home-schooling experience left her well positioned to adapt to COVID-19 learning when schools were closed in March 2020 and replaced by remote learning.

“Fortunately, everything was so smooth for me,” Smith said. “I had such a good experience. Since I was home-schooled, I was used to being at home, so when COVID happened, and there was remote learning, that was what I was used to doing.”

And, she added, “Over COVID, I had so much more time to cook. I really fell in love with it.”

Smith’s mother, who was born in Italy, has a degree in languages and worked as a translator before devoting herself to home-schooling her children. She earned her master’s degree last year and started her own life-coaching business called The Light Shines, a name signifying there is hope amid so much darkness.

Smith’s father, who works at home as a software engineer for Atlanta-based Cox Automotive, taught his children some math classes.

Smith had long favored the Culinary Institute of America for college but when she made a spreadsheet to compare it to Johnson & Wales, the latter came out ahead. One factor was the semester format for Johnson & Wales versus CIA’s trimesters. She wants to have some longer breaks to hang out with friends.

At home, she organizes everything, from baking and cooking to home décor. She helps organize parties, matching themes with foods and decorations. And she talks about running a restaurant.

“NFA has been absolutely great for her,” Smith’s mother said. “She really loved the campus, and the teachers and the students. It’s more like a beautiful college.”

NFA culinary arts teacher Laura Szczygiel has taught Lili Smith in four classes over the past two years. She has watched her patiently supervise special needs students in the unified culinary class.

“She shows them how to do things, rather than doing it for them,” Szczygiel said.

Szczgiel hopes Smith comes back to NFA after college to become a teacher.

“I sent an email to her mom saying, ‘If my daughter grows up to be half as good as she, I’ll be satisfied,’” Szczygiel said.

Smith said she plans to study abroad after college, in Italy and France.

“We think she’s going to do great,” her father said. “She’s well adjusted, a hard-working, good student. I’m really confident she is going to do something great with her life.”

c.bessette@theday.com