Cooking Up A Future

      What started out as time in the kitchen learning  how to cook with her grandma during her early childhood has become a hobby for sophomore Eliyah Brown. Now in high school, Brown takes a food class and helps her grandma cook dinner after school.

     Brown wants to be a chef when she gets older, so she is taking culinary classes now.

     “I want to be a chef, so I need to learn how to cook different stuff instead of just one thing,” Brown said. “My grandma cooks a lot, and I’ve kind of picked up the hobby from her. My grandma helped teach me how to cook but not too much because she didn’t want me to burn myself. But now that I’m older, she really has me in the kitchen a lot. We like to cook burgers and tacos, and shrimp alfredo is good too.” 

     When she was 4 years old, Brown and her little brother Brandon’s father passed away, and then their mother moved out of state without them, so their grandma started to raise them.

     “My mom moved out of state to do whatever she felt like,” Brown said. “She has another daughter, but we got separated, so now it’s just me and my brother without my older sister. I don’t really know what my momma’s doing now.”

     Brown’s grandma not only helped teach her how to cook, but Brown said she has also helped her become a better person.

     “My grandma’s crazy,” Brown said. “For her age she’s got a lot of energy. She’s really just a happy person.”

     Brown and her grandma are now the cooks for the family, and Brown said when she’s in the kitchen she likes to experiment and mix spices for new recipes.

     “I’ll be creative and mix spices together and put it in different types of meat to see how it tastes to see if I like it or not,” Brown said. “Sometimes I’ll have my brother and my grandma try it to see if it’s too salty or too plain, or add more or use less.”

     Brown’s hobby is not only of use at home, but she participates in ProStart Foods I at school.

     “I learn a lot in that class, and I learn different things from that class then from what my grandma would do,” Brown said. “It’s one of my favorite classes.”

     Between Brown’s culinary class and her grandma’s lessons, Brown believes that she is well on her way to becoming a chef.