Mari Gonzalez

New Technology High School

920 Yount St .

Napa , CA 94559

Dear Judges,

For my senior project I have chosen to learn how to cook and bake. I am very shy with cooking; I have no confidence that I can cook something that turns out yummy. I don't even know where to start. My specialty would be making a bowl of cereal, and still sometimes I don't even put the right amount of milk in the bowl. I watch my Mom cook dinner for my Dad every night, nothing to complicated other than just warming up things and making pasta. Watching this inspires me to want to be able one day to make my husband dinner and know at what temperatures to cook certain food at. When my Mom was away for a week on vacation I was taking over making my Dad his lunch and dinner and I struggled. I don't want to do that anymore, I want to be able to ask people if I can make them dinner or even dessert and be happy with my work.

I was so nervous about this and have always turned down trying to help cook just because I knew I couldn't do it, but now I think I had to step up to the plate and make a few dishes that people really enjoyed eating. I had to cook for some family functions and was anxious to see what people would think. I had to cook for a fundraiser and I've never felt so good inside with my finished product! I had to overcome many obstacles such as arguments in the kitchen, having a more positive attitude towards my project, and not being able to eat a lot of what I made. In the end I think I gathered a lot of good information and was more inspired to cook than ever. I just realized that it is never too late to learn something if your mind is really set to it.

My mentor Lauri Holmes is my boyfriend's mother and she was such a big help, I couldn't have done it with out her. She was very interested in helping me out because she loves to cook and has her own special recipes. She has taught me what foods go together, how you cook it and how to be patient with food while it is being cooked. She has learned from her mother and from herself. She has her own sauces and recipes and as well as many dessert recipes that her mother left her! So I am very excited to get started and am really happy that I could find someone to mentor me who I know and trust and was comfortable making mistakes around.

Thank You

Mari Gonzalez

Process Paper

Senior Project 2007

“PREHEAT the oven! What am I doing!? Can I do this? Oh! Oh no..I think I burned it.” In the beginning of my senior year I wasn't nervous one bit about completing my senior project, I was actually pretty excited because I knew immediately what I wanted to learn. For me cooking a full dinner was never something I had to do or even knew how to do. I am so shy with cooking that I wouldn't even make someone a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because I would be too worried of what they thought of it, or maybe they thought they could make it better. I didn't want to grow up not knowing how to cook anything or being so unconfident. So that's why for my senior project I chose a great challenge of learning how to cook and bake homemade meals and some delicious desserts.

First thing I needed to do was to find myself a serious mentor who is strong on this subject of cooking. I had a few people actually in mind but not many would have a lot of time to teach me so in the end I went with my mentor Lauri Holmes. Lauri is my boyfriend's mother, so I'm sure it's clear to see this alone would be a challenge having to be with her for weekends in a row. Lauri and I “butt heads” plenty of times because of my laziness in the kitchen. Lauri loves cooking and has books full of special recipes that her mom left her after she passed away. No matter what disagreements went down in the kitchen at the end of the day neither of us remembered and we would just have to share some laughs.

My mentor and I would meet on weekends at her house and would go to the grocery store with each other and end up shopping for food for the house and spend loads of money. Soon enough my mentor started sending me on my own to buy all of our ingredients. I had to have a lot of obedience with my mentor. It was so hard to be over at my boyfriend's house on the weekend and keep myself from running over to him and start hanging out with him! After awhile that had to stop my mentor was way to serious about cooking and about making sure I learned how to do it properly. One of the first dinners we tried was in the pasta category. Tortellini in pesto sauce with cut up chicken, spaghetti and my favorite lasagna with homemade French bread! The first thing Lauri had to inform me of was the rules of the preheating, When your baking recipe calls for a specific temperature, say 350 degrees pre-heat your oven to 375 because when you open the door to put the food in you will lose some heat. As soon as you put the food in the oven reduce the temperature to 350, a lot of little things that I never thought were important in cooking were really a big thing to her.

One of the first things I learned how to make was a potato salad. It turned out delicious! And I don't even like potato salad! We first had to boil Potatoes, when they were ready we picked them up with a fork and carefully peeled them. Then we covered them in butter, paprika (for looks) and vinegar, parsley and cut them in the same sizes and had to mix them. I actually had fun making this because it took a lot of effort but it was something simple to add all the ingredients. This salad was eaten by my boyfriend's family on Easter and everyone enjoyed it, after I knew I didn't kill anyone with my cooking I ended up letting them know that I had made it myself. I was beginning to become very confident and actually wanted to start learning seriously so I would be able to cook something special for a special dinner one day. The next thing we had to whip up in the kitchen was homemade lasagna and French bread! MMmm! My favorite. This project was going to be a little trickier, a lot of things had to be done at once and I knew all of my family loved lasagna so I knew when I was finished I would have to have them try it out. The greatest feeling is to complete the dinner and try it myself and love the flavor and then it hits you! “Hey I just made this by myself with my mentor helping me by my side; I can make anything I want!”

One of my favorite and most stressful moments of my senior project was the dessert part. My friend Tracy Cochran was in charge of running her senior project benefit dinner for our senior trip. Her goal was to sell 200 tickets for $15.00 each which would mean that every senior would gain back some spending money the day we take off for our senior trip to Disneyland . I thought it was a great idea and since she was already making the fettuccine and Chicken paccata, I asked her if I could help out with making a dessert for the special night. I do not know what I was thinking and when I told my mentor we would have to make desserts for 200 people she nearly fainted. My mentor loves to cook and is great at it, but baking, not so great. I really enjoyed the three days in a row with her because it was a challenge for the both of us. She learned a lot from helping me with this assignment and we grew a closer relationship after having our little hissy fits day after day. The day of the event went great, and I have never helped out with such an event and it felt so great!

Finally, in the end I think that I really grew from doing this project. I gained some self confidence and allowed myself to cook for others and be happy that I did so. I learned a lot of little things about cooking and I had a great time helping out a fundraiser by making desserts for 200 people. I hope to continue learning from my mentor and soon be able to not have her help in the kitchen and be able to add my own touch to whatever I may make. I really am glad that I could experience this with Lauri because I think it was important for us to get to know each other better and to be able to talk to each other about anything. I loved what I did and I'm glad that's what I chose to learn. I know I still need to complete some time in the kitchen before I can go off and become the worlds best teen chef but I plan on being very successful in what I choose to do. J

Reflection Paper

Senior Project 2007

Throughout this whole year I have been so excited to be a senior and to finally be out of high school and move on to college! With all the excitement though it takes a lot of energy away from all the real work you have to complete as a senior. Including senior portfolio, internship and of course senior project. I have been bouncing off the walls this whole year trying to just complete one thing at a time. I think it is a great accomplishment to be able to successfully complete my senior project while having hundreds of other things going on around me. I really had to learn time management or else I would have never graduated from this school! I picked up a new skill and learned that it is never too late to be able to work on something as long as you give it time and a strong effort.

Cooking and baking was a big challenge for me. It also gave my mentor a challenge because she had to put up sometimes with my negative attitude or my laziness in the kitchen. After awhile we got on a roll and my mentor was actually making things fun for me. I really got closer to Lauri Holmes and I am really glad I did. I couldn't thank her enough for the time she put in to do all of this for me. I really hope she knows how much it meant to me.

Some obstacles that I had during my kitchen experiences were actually paying close attention to the little things you had to do. I just didn't understand why it mattered how big you cut the onions or how a pinch of extra salt would make a difference to a dish. I most definitely realize now after messing up a few times. One of the things I dreaded most was having to clean up the kitchen I thought it was just ridiculous! But my mentor told me that was a part of cooking and once you use something you go and wash it before you use something else. I had to wash dish after dish, sweep, clean the counters, the microwave and she taught me a trick to stick a lemon down the sink disposable in order to make it smell good.

I also had to learn that when you're first starting or if you're an expert at cooking something may go wrong anytime. The first time I had to make my lasagna I accidentally forgot to put the timer on for an extra five minutes and instead left it in for an extra ten. I was thinking it would be still fine, I mean after all what is an extra five minutes going to hurt. Well all I remember is seeing a burnt black top and crispy edges and I wanted to cry because I had just spent so much money and time to finish it. Although this happened and this could happen to any one I was really upset and wanted to give up, but I realized that it really does teach you to learn from your mistakes. After this happened I never once forgot to turn on the timer I would make sure it was on at least three times before leaving the kitchen.

Some other obstacles I had to overcome were not being able to eat a big portion of the foods I made. My mentor and I had a weight loss challenge and we were on a no bad carbohydrate, low sugar diet. You could understand how difficult this was to be cooking pasta and brownies! I had to cheat though in order to make sure that my food turned out good. My mentor still hasn't cheated and has yet to try my pastas, it's her lose.

After everything I have gone through I am truly happy with myself and am way more confident with my cooking and hope that I can continue on working on my skills. I hope that my family and my mentor have realized the effort I actually put in and I hope they are proud of me and maybe even ask me to make dinner for a special event sometime soon. I want to be able to cook for my family now and the family I may have in the future I think that is very important being a married women with children, and I know now I can accomplish that and much more.