Greenbrier West Highschool Culinary has kicked off the school year with its delicious teacher lunches. Culinary teacher, Chef Foley has his students do projects as their main grade source. The lunches that kids make are their “rolling projects”, a continuous project that his students work on to better their skills and also overcome new obstacles.

At the beginning of school, Chef had a hard time with his students due to COVID-19 as well as the majority of the students not having hands-on experience in a restaurant or kitchen environment. It took some time for the students to prepare. Luckily, a few of his students currently have or had a job over the summer in a restaurant and could help lead the other students in class. Chef had minor projects in class for the new students to get the gist of things, like time management. Last year, due to COVID-19 culinary didn’t do teacher lunches, they did breakfast. Chef had his older students from last year come early in the morning to start before the other students came to help box the food and deliver it to the teachers.

Due to their lack of experience, it was difficult for the new students to participate in student lunch activities. However, they made the menu wonderfully. This year is smokehouse-themed, and everything is delicious! Entrees include the Smokehouse calzone which has thick cut bacon, smoked mozzarella, pepperoni, Italian sausage, peppers, onions in smoked house marinara wrapped in hand made crust painted with BBQ butter.

A pulled pork sandwich that’s slow simmered with house-made BBQ on toasted brioche, and a lovely smoked chicken sandwich that’s marinated in house, thick-cut bacon, apple butter BBQ sauce, and pickled apple slices on toasted brioche. The sides include 3 cheese mac n’ cheese, baked beans, coleslaw, and house chips.

They also have a new dessert each week. This week’s dessert will be a pecan cobbler (it’s similar to pecan pie).

Each Item on the menu tastes absolutely wonderful and the teachers couldn’t believe that students made this food. When asked about the food many teachers wanted to comment. One teacher that had gotten the pulled pork sandwich said it was “the correct amount of moist”(which is kinda tricky to achieve).

Chef’s students worked on the menu items for weeks, perfecting each one.