Weiyun Chen & Supatida Sutiratana from Midnight Project
Sean Feeney, Board Chair
Sasha Ahuja, Governance Chair
Wendy Chen, Treasurer
Giovanni Colavita, Finance Vice Chair
Dana Cowin
Erica D’Silva, Secretary
Sybil Ford
Xavier Ifill
Jehan Ilahi, Finance Chair
Amber Martin
John Meadow, Fundraising Vice Chair
Debra Puchalla
Uwe Voss
Dana Beninati, Co-Chair
Jonathan Moldenhauer, Co-Chair
Erica Cantley
Jo Chang
Fouad ElAmir
Rebecca Gildiner
Nikita Gupta
Tiffany Iung
Jazmin Johnson
Victoria Jordan
Alex Kean
Yoni Kintzer
Ashley Lonsdale
Diana Manalang
Jen Minervini
Melissa Patel
Nikhil Perincherry
Gabbie Reade
Rachel Silverman
Hugo Vicente
Erica Wright Kangkang Yang
Food and Finance High School Academy of Hospitality and Tourism Brooklyn STEAM Center
⌦ Interview: Stacey Mei Yan Fong
⌦ A Can of Memories
Grade: Sophomore Team: Marketing Team
Go-to Comfort Meal: My go-to comfort meal is mole because it has a sweet and spicy flavor to it.
Grade: Junior Team: Creative Team Favorite Cake from Childhood: The Matilda cake, that really chocolatey one. It meant a lot to me because that’s the first book I really enjoyed reading, and I would just always go back to reading that book.
Grade: Junior Team: Editorial Team
Go-to Comfort Meal: Brownies. Any time I am feeling sad about anything, I make brownies, and they make me feel so much better.
Grade: Senior Team: Editorial Team Lead
Go-to Comfort Meal: Fried mac n’ cheese balls
Grade: Senior Team: Creative Team Lead
Go-to Comfort Meal: I usually like to eat tostadas when I’m down but on a rainy day I prefer noodles.
Grade: Senior Role: Marketing Team Lead
Go-to Comfort Meal: A salchipapa. This is a Dominican dish that contains french fries, sausages, cheese, ketchup, and mayonnaise. This is my go-to meal because it reminds me of when I visit the Dominican Republic.
Grade: Sophomore Team: Creative Team
Favorite Childhood Dish: A dish that my grandma used to make me and my mom also makes me called salchicha con huevos. I’ve always loved it since I was little.
Grade: Senior Team: Recipe Development Team Lead
Grade: Freshman Team: Marketing Team Favorite Childhood Dish: My favorite dish growing up is sopa de fideo. It’s like a tomato-based soup that has multiple shapes of pasta you could put in.
Grade: Sophomore Team: Marketing Team
Go-to Comfort Meal: My go-to comfort meal is chicken alfredo because I really love cheese and pasta.
Grade: Junior Team: Editorial Team
Go-to Comfort Meal: Pollo guisado con arroz, frijoles, avocado & beetroots. I love this meal because it is a kind of meal your mom makes you after a long day. The flavors are different so you get a bite that’s always different.
Grade: Junior Team: Editorial Team
Favorite Cake from Childhood: The Max & Ruby Cake because it was colorful and it showed how different they were. It stayed in my memory.
Favorite Childhood Dish: My favorite childhood dish is Guayanese egg ball. It is like a boiled egg wrapped in a thick layer of cassava and you eat it with Guyanese sour or tamarind sauce. My mom bought it one day at Sybils and ever since then, I order it when I go.
Grade: Junior Team: Recipe Development Team
Go-to Comfort Meal: Lasagna or pizza. It makes me feel at home.
Grade: Junior Team: Recipe Development Team
Go-to Comfort Meal: I’ll always enjoy a good burger, mainly because of how its flavors combine with each other.
ThankYou
The Food Education Fund team would like to extend a special thank you to the following organizations who generously supported this year’s Pass the Spatula team and workshops!
DONATED THANKS!
The holidays are always memories with our loved ones a prime time for making To create these, we asked the question: what could a recipe look like if you wanted to send it to someone for safekeeping? The result is this series of postcards containing recipes reimagined as letters and notes — inspired by meals the Pass the Spatula students shared with loved ones during the winter break.
To preserve some of that holiday joy, the Pass the Spatula student team created a series of postcard recipes.
Three Questions about Visiting Industry Professional with Zyair Williams
Visiting Industry Professionals
By Alvania Villegas
VIP is more than just a learning experience. It brings together different generations through the shared experience of growing up and growing professionally — sharing stories, tips, and picking up life-long skills along the way.
One of our Pass the Spatula team members, Zyair Williams from the Recipe Development team, attended a VIP session at Brooklyn STEAM led by Joshua Pickens, President of Ole & Steen US. We asked him to reflect on his VIP experience.
The Visiting Industry Professional (VIP) program is an initiative run by the Food Education Fund, serving as a valuable opportunity for students to meet with and learn from professionals whose experience highlights the diversity of career paths available within the broader hospitality industry.
This program is taught by a diverse group of industry experts, including those from service, restaurant, and hospitality professions. They share their experiences and expertise through demonstrations and hands-on workshops.
How did you feel about VIP that session?
It was really fun learning about focaccia and getting to make it. It requires a lot of oil.
What is one new thing you learnt from the VIP session?
Sourdough bread is really delicate, and you really can’t mess up the sourdough starter. If you do, your whole bread will be messed up.
Imagine you are going back in time to talk to yourself right before the VIP session. What advice would you give yourself about the experience?
To have an open mind, because I know you don’t really like making bread, and you don’t really like baking. You really like cooking. But, have an open mind because baking can also be fun.
Photography by FEF team
by
School Grounds is a Food Education Fund social enterprise where FEF students run a food and beverage pop-up in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center during the NBA season. It’s the nation’s only pro-sports arena vendor led by high school students.
This initiative — run through FEF’s Workforce Development internship program — offers students the experience of running a business from the ground-up; from recipe development and cooking to front-of-house management and marketing. Just like with sports, every season of School Grounds looks different, and preparation and teamwork is key. For the School Grounds team this year, they navigated all the things that come with running a dynamic restaurant, including adapting their menu, team roster, and mentality to suit the needs of the arena and their customers.
Milani Posh, Marketing Team, on what it’s been like going from focusing on
Pass the Spatula’s Jada Collymore and Traceena Lynch stopped by the Barclays Center during a couple of games to interview a few of the School Grounds team and see what working there has been like this year.
“I think it’s pretty cool learning the ins and outs of a kitchen. It’s just basic knowledge you should have when you want to work in the hospitality field. I didn’t really know how to be in the kitchen [when I first started]. So, I was always asking about the task that I was given. But after my third shift, I got the hang of it and everybody was nice.”
baking to culinary, and learning the ropes after joining the team mid-season
Arnold,
on her role and what she’s hoping to achieve
“My role as hospitality manager is to make sure that guest relations between us and the guests obviously is as smooth as possible. We should know what’s going on when somebody asks a question or help them with the ordering process and kiosk. I do want to achieve better guest relations-skills. We’re doing good right now, but it could be even better!”
Carolyn Hernandez, Market Designer, on her challenges and achievements within her role
Matthew Rodriguez, Hospitality Team, on his role and some of the challenges and achievements so far
“Games have a huge crowd. I am the one that’s there on the concourse outside of Brooklyn Market bringing [people] into School Grounds. Like, ‘Hey, you guys should come check out School Grounds cafe and their unique selection of food!’ … One of my biggest challenges [is] all the fast paced tasks that we need to do, because we have to be ready by a certain time. My biggest achievement, honestly, is learning the role. Maybe I’ll be using this 10 years down the line.”
“I design the overall stand. My biggest challenge is seeing how guests interact with what we have and seeing if what we do helps our guest relations, and if not then I try to find solutions. But I feel like my biggest achievement is seeing what we’ve done actually [result in] bringing in more people.”
“I manage all of the team: what happens in either prep work and the kitchen, as well as looking over sanitation while we work, and keeping track of time and how we use it.”
“I keep track of what sells, what the customers like most, and I come up with how much each item costs. I wasn’t really familiar with it until I got into this role. My biggest achievement so far is that my knife skills have improved a lot since working at School Grounds.”
Anaya Santiago, Finance Manager, on her role and what she’s proud
Photography by Winnie Arzu
Interviews
Jada Collymore and Traceena Lynch
Photography by Jada Collymore and Aislin Ramos
Jasmine
Hospitality Manager,
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 1–1.5 hours
Yield: 10–12 servings
6 chicken thighs, boneless skinless kosher salt, to taste
2 tablespoons cumin seed, whole
2 tablespoons dried oregano
2 tablespoons dried chili flake
2 tablespoons dried thyme water
1 medium spanish onion, julienned
5 garlic cloves, whole ½ jalapeño, seeded and whole
½ cup vegetable oil
10–12 corn tortillas
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Yield: ~2 Quarts
5 tomatillos, husks removed
2 jalapeños, whole water
3 garlic cloves
½ bunch cilantro, picked kosher salt
2 limes, juiced
Prep Time: 30 Minutes
Yield: 2 cups
1 red onions, julienned
6 oz Colavita red wine vinegar
3 oz water
⅓ cup salt
⅓ cup granulated sugar
→
BRAISED CHICKEN
1. Season chicken thighs with salt, cumin, oregano, chili flake, and thyme. Sear them in a large pot over medium-high heat until golden brown. You can do this in batches, if needed.
2. Deglaze pan with water, being sure to scrape the bottom of the pan. Add seared chicken back into the pan with onion, garlic, and jalapeño. Cover with water and lightly season with salt.
3. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer. Cook until chicken shreds easily. Remove chicken and shred, but save the liquid for later use. Add ½ cup salsa verde. Cover with braising liquid and season with salt.
4. Warm up tortillas. Serve with salsa verde garnish, some pickled red onions, and any of your favorite toppings. Don’t forget to add a splash of the School Grounds hot sauce!
Braised Chicken Tacos Braised Chicken Tacos
→ SALSA VERDE GARNISH
1. In a large pot, blanch tomatillos and jalapenos until tender. Remove from water and save ½ quart of liquid.
2. Puree tomatillos, jalapeños, garlic, and cilantro. Adjust with cooking liquid if needed. Add lime juice, salt to taste, and cool.
→ PICKLED RED ONIONS
1. In a sauce pot, combine vinegar, water, salt, and sugar and bring to a simmer.
2. Place red onions in a high-walled container that is heat-resistent. Cover red onions with hot pickling liquid, stir, and leave out to cool to room temperature.
3. You can serve these as a topping for the braised chicken tacos or any other tacos of your liking.
Jada
What inspired you to start your community based salad business Arthur Street Kitchen in Sydney?
Hetty Lui McKinnon: I used to work in Public Relations … I was living in Sydney, in this beautiful community and I just didn’t want to work in an office anymore. I was thinking, what’s an excuse where don’t have to go work in an office? Then I thought, could just cook. I feel like people love food around here. had no business plan. I had no experience cooking professionally, but I just put a lot of love into [it]. I just wanted to do something fun and something that would keep me rooted in my community. It was kind of a weird business, because who really does this? Who makes salads at home and delivers them on a bike? But people just loved it, because think in the food industry, there are not many places where there’s one person that has shopped for you, for the ingredients, that’s thought of the recipe, that’s cooked the recipe, and then delivered it to your door. It’s quite a full circle moment. I think that sense of community was really what people loved about it. Then through that business, fell in love with cooking. I fell in love with sharing food with people because saw how it brings people together, and how you can be really different as humans. Food is this kind of common bridge. So that community aspect is really important to me in what do.
JC: How did moving from Sydney to Brooklyn influence your approach to cooking and recipe development?
HLM: I think your location and your surroundings absolutely influences everything because your access to ingredients is different. Seasons are different. Sydney is very temperate all year round. We don’t really have a proper winter and it’s nice all year round. So moving to Brooklyn, to New York, where you have four defined seasons of the year, you have farmers markets that we are so lucky to have in the city, where you have access to beautiful produce … that absolutely affected the way I cooked. America and Australia are different, and culturally they’re very different, so there were lots of influences … I wanted to really embrace what the city was offering, and build those flavors into the recipes I developed.
JC: Love matching and salad making! What are some of your favorite ingredients to use in plant-based cooking, and why?
HLM: Vegetables, as a general rule, is huge for me. think in food, [vegetables] have been traditionally very poorly represented. People think about vegetables as an afterthought. It’s always the meat as the core of a recipe, and then everything else is not really thought about. For me, thinking about showing people how to cook vegetables really creatively … where it can be the main part of your meal, that is my big passion. I really want to put vegetables front and center because I think that that is a service. People are so excited when they can cook vegetables well. think it’s harder to cook vegetables well than it is to cook meat well, because you’re really using different techniques. You’re trying to achieve textures by cooking them differently, you can inject flavors by adding spices. There’s so much you can do, and people just don’t know about it. That’s my big passion — allowing vegetables to shine.
JC: How do you come up with new and creative recipes for your cookbooks?
HLM: It’s really fun because I think about my cookbooks each as a story. I approach them as a time in my life, and [ask] what story am I looking to tell?
It’s like the most fun of all the recipe development, because storytelling is such a huge part of my recipe development.
JC: Can you share a memorable experience or story from your time running Arthur Street Kitchen?
HLM: There are so many. I’ve had two customers that met through deliveries that became a couple — a lot of love matches around salad. But honestly, some of the people that I met during the salad delivery days are still some of my best friends. They are people that appear again and again in my work, because they’re real friends and it’s really special.
For my last book Tenderheart, for example, it was 22 recipes. Each chapter was devoted to one vegetable and that was such a fun way to do recipe development, because basically I would go to my fridge and go “What vegetable do I have in my fridge or what vegetable do I have in my pantry?” and then look at my condiments that had around and [ask] “What can I make today with this recipe right now, where don’t have to go out to a store and buy more things?” That was the way I developed that book, and the home cooks that love that book just love it. They say, “I just love the fact that I can go look in my fridge and I find a broccoli, and I can just make something with that broccoli.” I think parameters, setting yourself rules, and giving yourself a really set theme or story [is] a really fun way to develop recipes, and it makes me really creative.
JC: What advice would you give to someone who is new to being a vegetarian or new to plant-based cooking?
HLM: You really need to learn to love lots of vegetables and using them in different ways. It doesn’t mean you just have to eat a head of cauliflower for dinner, but you can use that cauliflower in a stew or in a pasta dish or in a stir fry or something. It’s just all these different ways of preparing them well.
I think that when you learn to love vegetables or love the diversity of vegetables, it will make you a better and healthier long term vegetarian/vegan/ plant-based eater.
I also advocate tapping in on the flavors that you already love. So if you’re switching to a plant-based diet, but you love chicken parm or something that you don’t want to give up, you can take that flavor profile and adapt it to a vegetarian setting … For the New York Times, I did a cabbage parm, which is not breaded or anything, but it takes the elements of the red sauce and the mozzarella and the basil. All those flavor profiles are there, but it’s adapted in a different way. I think using comforting flavors is a great way to transition into a plant-based diet.
JC: Final question I have for you is, how do you balance the demands of being a cookbook author, food writer, and a mother all in one? And do you ever face any challenges?
HLM: There are always challenges. I started the Arthur Street Kitchen business at home. I’m really lucky that my youngest was one at the time, and so I’ve always been around my kids when I’ve been cooking, but that’s because I got to do it. got to cook at home.
I definitely felt like early on in my career in food there was less time to do things. It’s always the juggle, because I always wanted to be a full-time mom and a full-time worker too. If you do the math, it doesn’t really work, right? You end up being part-time and part-time. But I also wouldn’t give that up for anything. It’s such a privilege to be able to work and be a mum at the same time without someone telling you you know you have to be at work at a certain time.
Pass
the Spatula’s
Editorial
Lead Jada Collymore interviewed Hetty Lui McKinnon, a James Beard Foundation Award and IACP winning cookbook author and food writer, with a passion for vegetables and community. Hetty is the author of five bestselling cookbooks, including the acclaimed Tenderheart, To Asia, With Love, and Community. In this conversation, Jada spoke with Hetty about how she got her start in writing cookbooks, the community she built through her salad-making origins, and all the memories she made along the way—from Sydney to Brooklyn.
I love freelancing. Every single day is different. Even if I’m working on a book, I have that autonomy to mix up my days, and I love that. It allows me to be more creative, because some days you don’t want to write, some days you can’t write, and some days you can’t cook, or there are some days wake up and I only want to be in the kitchen. only want to be recipe testing. It’s really wonderful to have that flexibility in my job. I feel really lucky.
MCKINNON HETTYLUI
Collymore:
This is my way of trying to preserve my favorite Guyanese dish and national treasure.
While working on the recipe development for this, I realized that the process of making Pepperpot is so complicated for somebody doing it for the first time that hearing from somebody with years of experience will help you better understand the process.
(Dear ancestors, please don’t disown me after reading this.)
PEPPER POT
By Traceena Lynch
For this recipe, I have to write an actual procedure for it, but every time I ask you for a procedure there isn’t any exact one that you give me. You just tell me X, Y, and Z. So, I want to ask a few questions to see if I can get a procedure out of you. What do you do for preparation before you actually cook the Pepperpot?
VS: You taste it to make sure that it has enough flavor. I don’t add extra brown sugar.
TL: And what is it supposed to come out tasting like?
VS: Spicy because of the peppers. It must be slightly sweet, but not too sweet.
TL: How did you learn how to make this?
VS: Granny, actually. Actually, I think, maybe just the way I’m telling you. Somebody told me about it and I just felt like, let me try it out. I tried and then I just perfected it.
TL: When do you know when it’s done?
Cut up the meat, you clean the meat, wash it with the lemon juice, you soak it for a bit. You wash it out. Then, you season the meat and you let it sit for three days.
2 LB OXTAIL
½ LB OF CHICKENFEET
2X 13 OZ BOTTLES OF POMEROON CASSAREEP
¼ CUP BURNT SUGAR
3 TABLESPOONS BROWN SUGAR
1 CINNAMON STICK
5 SPRIGS FRESH THYME
5 CLOVES
2 WHOLE SCOTCH BONNET PEPPERS SALT TO TASTE
Photography by ElianAvila
TL: Okay. Why do we only eat this around Christmas time?
VS: Because it’s a Guyanese tradition. That’s when you eat it.
TL: So after you prep everything, what do you do next?
VS: It eventually gets a gooey-ness. If you pressure it to cook faster, it doesn’t have that gooey-ness when you boil it.
TL: But how do you know when the meat is cooking? Everything is pitch black. Will you look at the meat to see if it’s cooked or do you taste it?
VS: You have to taste the meat. You have to poke the meat and see if it’s cooked. If you start seeing it fall, you’ll know.
TL: How long did it take you to perfect your Pepperpot? Two Christmases? One Christmas?
VS: You just freeze it until you’re ready to cook it. Three or five days in advance. You have put it back in the freezer. And then you take it out the day that you’re going to make it.
TL: When we first put it in the pot [do we just] leave it alone? How do you know when to check on it?
VS: I give it time. If the meat is fully thawed, I put it in the pot and I will put water to cover the meat. [It] creates its own water as it cooks. I don’t put oil because it creates its own oil. Then I just let it cook once it has enough water. The water must always be slightly over the meat.
TL: The amount that you make lasts us from Christmas to the New Year. But what if you’re just making a small amount with a few pounds of oxtail and a few pounds of chicken feet?
VS: You cook it the same way. You’re not cooking it any different. You have to keep checking the meat as well. You just let your meat boil. Keep boiling, keep boiling. The first check [is after] I give it an hour. It’s going to take a long time. It will take at least an hour to cook. Then once you test it, you gauge.
TL: When do I come back? When do you add more burnt sugar?
VS: Two Christmases
TL: Do you trust me to make Pepperpot for Christmas this year?
VS: Straight up, no. I trust you to make some bread.
TL: You’ve got to teach me your ways of making Pepperpot.
VS: I think you could do a pretty good job because I’ve noticed when you put your mind to it, you do a good job.
Recipe Day is a big deal for the Pass the Spatula team. It’s when our student team puts all the skills they’ve been learning over the semester to practice — testing, styling, and shooting all of the recipes for the magazine. PTS’ resident aspiring recipe developer Zyair Williams chose to work on his own spin of a recipe his family loves: Natasha Kravchuck’s Banana Bread. He shared reflections on his process below, showcasing that as recipes get passed down from generation to generation (whether they be family favorites or from chefs and bakers we admire), they continue to infuse with the flavors and personalities of the hands they pass through.
My mother loves to make Natasha Kravchuk’s banana bread recipe. She’s been making it for me ever since I was a little kid. I’ve always loved it because of how fluffy and moist the banana bread is inside. I decided to make this recipe myself and document my journey for this issue of PTS because of the nostalgic feeling I get from it. It always reminds me of my younger days, of my mother cutting up little square pieces of the banana bread and leaving it on the cooling rack. My mother makes it mainly in the winter because of the warmth and comfort of the fluffy bread on a cold day.
On recipe day for PTS, I tried a different take of Natasha and my mother’s banana bread recipe. I was inspired to do this because one day I would like to become a recipe developer and I figured I would need to create different recipes of my own. So this was practice for me!
Natasha’s recipe calls for a loaf pan. I didn’t have one on hand so I used a large foil tray. I used butter to grease the pan because that was also what I had on hand at the school. This recipe calls for walnuts, but I didn’t use walnuts because my mother never uses them.
Instead of a mixing bowl, I went for an electric mixer. My friend and fellow PTS teammate Joy suggested that we cream the butter first. I don’t remember my mother creaming the butter first, but I found that it made the batter thicker. In my opinion, for this banana bread you want a thick batter because it makes for a fluffy bread.
I followed the rest of the method the way it was written, mashed my bananas with a fork, and baked the bread for 60 minutes.
At the end, I placed a banana slice and drizzled a little honey on the top to create my own representation of this banana bread.
Banana Bread
A Can of Memories
The first taste of Sarita’s queso y fresa ice cream always takes me back to Livingston, Guatemala—my hometown with humid afternoons, the smell of salt in the air, and the feeling of the sun warming my skin. Sarita is a Latin American company that serves ice cream, with stores in Guatemala. When I was a child, I would spend months in Guatemala. Now it’s less often, sadly. I still try to go during my breaks from school. What really inspired me to create this can was that it reminded me of people I met there or people that are really close to me, like my mother and my grandmother.
Now that I live in New York, I’ve never found a flavor as unique as queso y fresa — a creamy, slightly tangy cheese ice cream mixed with swirls of sweet strawberry. It was rich but refreshing, sweet but not too much. I wanted to preserve it, so that I could always have it on hand. That’s the main reason why I decided to make this can.
I remember sitting outside with my ice cream on my grandma’s lawn, trying to eat it before it melted. My dad would laugh, reminding me to lick around the edges before it dripped down my wrist.
My grandma and my grandpa lived together in Livingston, Guatemala. My grandpa passed away a few years ago and when someone passes away, there’s this big communal gathering, like a festival, to celebrate the life of a person. Since our town is so small, we got the local Sarita to come serve ice cream. I remember it was a very hot day — about 100 degrees. I was with the rest of the kids, all my younger cousins. We were all eating our different flavors of Sarita and they were simultaneously melting. It was so hot and we were trying to eat it but it melted faster than we could keep up. The elders were yelling at us to “Come get the mops and clean it off the porch!”
Another memory I have is sitting with my father on my grandma’s porch. He had a motorcycle
and we would just lounge around. Sometimes we would go fishing too. Usually our snack would be this: a little scoop of happiness in a cone. I savored every bite.
If I had to imagine what this can tastes like, I’d say it tastes like a moment: like when you’re walking to school or when walking through your town, seeing your friends, or seeing someone you recognize. It tastes like I’m back in Guatemala with the sound of water, music, the rustling of leaves, vehicles and mopeds. Have you ever smelled sunshine? It smells like sunshine. It tastes like nostalgia to me. It’s funny how something so simple can hold so much.
During the Pass the Spatula’s visual communication module, the team was paid a visit from Midnight Project, the design studio behind Issue 6. Weiyun Chen and Supatida Sutiratana, the designers behind Midnight Project, taught our student team about branding and design principles through a practical exercise: the student team was given a selection of canned foods to work with, and asked to brainstorm a childhood dish based on those cans and their own memories. Using collage and drawing materials, they designed custom labels for said dish. Pass the Spatula’s Editorial team member Joy Ellington speaks about the canned ice cream she dreamt up, inspired by her fond memories of Livingston, Guatemala.
Growing up in a Dominican household, it was always lively. There was always family around and birthdays in particular were a big deal, especially at my house. To me, the birthday cakes were really where the party was at. It wasn’t just the taste of the cake. It was the excitement, the joy, and the feeling of being special. I still remember the taste of the super sweet and airy frosting of cakes from my younger days, and the symphony of everyone singing Happy Birthday before I took a bite into the first slice.
Birthday cakes have a long history. The tradition dates back to Ancient Greece, where round honey cakes were offered to the goddess Artemis. The birthday cakes we know today, with frosting and candles, became popular in Germany during the 18th Century at children’s parties, called kindertest. It was here that candles were first used, each one symbolizing a year of life.
The reason why I love birthday cakes isn’t just because of the celebrations around it. It’s the thought that goes into creating a cake that I love. The cake I remember most from my childhood is a traditional Dominican cake with dulce de leche filling, Italian meringue frosting, and the iconic classical and elegant piping. The feeling that it gave me is what inspired me to start my own baked goods and sweet treats business called Baked by Aylin.
This business is a passion project that I’m doing on the side, outside of school, to learn and gain experience as I hope to open up my own bakery after I graduate. I also want to work in a few bakeries and find myself a mentor.
BY AYLINHEZ
“The reason why I love birthday cakes isn’t just because of the celebrations around it. It’s the thought that goes into creating a cake that I love.”
“To me, the birthday cakes were really where the party was at. It wasn’t just the taste of the cake. It was the excitement, the joy, and the feeling of being special.”
Another reason I started this business is because I wanted to make everyone’s day just a little more special! And that’s the feeling that you get from a cake or a sweet treat — everything special just becomes a little more special.
I’m not alone in feeling this way about cakes. When I ask friends about cakes from their childhoods, their faces light up with memories. One remembers her mother’s chocolate cake, while another recalls the cake from her sweet sixteen. Those weren’t just desserts. They were made with love and care.
As you enjoy your next bite of cake, I encourage you to remember that you are not just tasting the cake, you are also tasting a part of your history. Cake has always been more than just a dessert. They’re a part of our celebrations, our traditions, and a way to relive our happiest memories.
Once we discovered Aylin’s love for cake, we started wondering what everybody else on the Pass The Spatula team was thinking about cakes. Did a cake from their childhood impact them as much as it did Aylin? So we decided to “pass the spatula” to the team and ask them if there were any cakes from their childhood that they loved and why. In conclusion, we discovered that no matter where you’re from or how you were raised, a sweet treat or cake has impacted your life one way or another.
➡ JADA COLLYMORE:
A cake that reminds me of my childhood is this Tinkerbell cake I had when I was younger because I was obsessed with Tinkerbell. I remember in kindergarten, my mom got it for me. I had never celebrated my birthday or had a birthday cake before, so that was my first birthday!
➡ ALVANIA VILLEGAS:
Growing up, I didn’t really eat cakes so it’ll probably be a dessert: flan. My mom used to make it all the time. She hated making it, but she knew that I liked it, so she would make it just for me. That’s why it’s a really special memory to me.
➡ JOY ELLINGTON:
It’s one of those little cups where they put the sponge cake, but it’s all stacked together in a cup, and then you just eat it out of the cup. It has strawberries and cream. Why does it mean so much to me? I don’t eat cake like that, but when I do, those were the main things that I would eat, and I would find them at parties. Recently, when I went back to Guatemala—my hometown—we did a ceremony for people who have passed away, and those were the main cakes that they served.
BY SERWA WILLIAMS
➡ SERWA WILLIAMS:
A cake from the milk bar because for four years straight I got those cakes for my birthday.
➡ CEYDA ATILGAN:
Cakes from Disney movies remind me of my childhood.
➡ AISLIN RAMOS:
It would be the ones with the dolls in it because I used to watch YouTube videos of people challenging themselves to decorate their [cake icing] dresses. I used to want one so bad, and whenever I would beg for one, I wouldn’t get it!
➡ ELIAN AVILA:
A Tres Leches cake or a flan. When I was little, no matter what birthday or occasion, there would most likely be flan or Tres Leches. That’s why they would just remind me of my childhood.
➡ DANIEL SYDNEY:
I would say red velvet cake with buttercream frosting. When I first had it in its cupcake form, the flavor really popped and I enjoyed it a lot. So that’s kind of what stands out to me when I think about a cake from my childhood.
At the Food Education Fund Gala this year, our Pass the Spatula team hosted their very own media station. Aislin Ramos, Alvania Villegas, Aylin Sanchez, Jada Collymore, and Traceena Lynch traded their aprons for their blue carpet attire, and ran a series of tiny mic interviews. They welcomed and dazzled guests as they arrived, while reporting on the evening. They also ran a recipe card station where they helped guests find new ways to share memories of their favorite childhood dishes for safekeeping. It was a night to remember!
Food the EDUCATION FUND
Over the course of five months, fifteen students gathered on a weekly basis to learn the ins and outs of food media. Together, working in teams, they wrote and reported stories, developed and tested recipes, learned to interview guests, illustrated and took photographs, sold ads, and even created social media content to promote their magazine. We’re so proud of this team! Here are some behind-the-scenes snaps from the making of Issue 6 of Pass the Spatula.
Students learned about food writing, interview etiquette, and recipe development. They participated in practical exercises to help them build up high-quality and strong food media storytelling skills that also encouraged them to practice compassion and creativity.
Hetty Lui McKinnon.pts
Cookbook authors and recipe developers Hetty Lui McKinnon and Stacey Mei Yan Fong also stopped by to share some of their creative process, as well as tips and tricks on writing and recipe development.
Students focused on learning visual communication skills including graphic design, branding, photography, and styling.
Designers Weiyun Chen and Supatida Sutiratana from Midnight Project paid them a visit to chat about all things branding, and guided students through an exercise where they created designs for can labels based on their childhood memories.
Throughout March and April, they put all their newfound skills together to make the magazine.
Students went out in the field to conduct interviews, worked on creating marketing content for social media, sold ads for the magazine, and shot and illustrated creative elements of the magazine.
The students also ran their own recipe day where they tested all the recipes in the magazine and shot photos of it all — including the cover! Six candles for the sixth issue of Pass the Spatula. Hooray!
Once the magazine was on its way to print, the students brainstormed and created social media content to promote the magazine. We’re so proud of this year’s student team who not only learned about traditional channels of food media, but also dipped their feet into digital and contemporary media. The future of food media is bright!
Stacey Mei Yan Fong.pts
Photography Workshop.pts
School Grounds.pts
Social Media Content.pts Recipe Day.pts
Chapter 3: March to April
PTS Team
Completed.
Special Notes
Thanks to Kate Kassin, Inés Anguiano, and the Bon Appétit team for letting us tour their test kitchen ahead of recipe day.
