On Dec. 18, 2015 students in the Hospitality and Tourism class participated in a cook-off in the cafeteria. Each team had to design their own panini with a description of their sandwich, a poster, and campaign for themselves. Beth Horwitz, the Hospitality and Tourism teacher, ran the grill-off.
The teams had to name themselves and decided on Six Side and SLACMS. SLACMS is an abbreviation for all the participants on their team including, freshmen Melina Clarke, Aden Geray, and Shataeya Smith, sophomore Sophie Czerepica, and seniors Lyndsey Martin, and Blue and Gold member Chaimae El Adlouni.
The students had prep time in the morning from 8:00 to 10:45 to get the paninis ready. They were then served in the Chef Production Line. Chefs Ryan Hurley and Omar Hernandez assisted the students in preparing and pressing the paninis. During all four lunches the paninis were given out along with a ticket to vote for one’s preferred panini.
The two paninis were named ‘The Holiday Spirit Panini’ from SLACMS and ‘The Million Dollar Sandwich’ from Six Side. The Holiday Spirit Panini was made with grilled chicken, melted mozzarella, lettuce, tomatoes, avocados, and topped with chipotle mayo in between two slices of America’s sourdough bread. As for Six Side’, the Million Dollar Sandwich consisted of melted provolone on ciabatta bread. They then added turkey along with roasted peppers, caramelized onions, and tomato. Both sandwiches were served with a side of fries.
Mayor Gary Christenson made a special appearance and cheered on the teams while they passed out the paninis.
Smith from the SLACMS team she said that she loved this project. She continued, saying that although it was fun “the process was still overwhelming because [the students] had to make over 200 paninis” during their prep time. In the end though Smith was left satisfied because she knew that there were dozens of people who had enjoyed the food that she had made with her team.
In the end SLACMS came out victorious with the most amount of tickets voting towards their team. Smith said it felt amazing to win after all the hard work she had put in.
The Holiday Spirit Panini is available in the Chef Production Line all this month.
Correction: In a previous version of this article, Sophie Czerepica was listed as being a freshman. She is actually a sophomore, and the article has been updated to reflect this.
