Crafty in the kitchen

Jeffrey De Leon, a Glendale High School senior, had never worked with quinoa, a Peruvian grain. That was the point Wednesday, when foods and Bistro teacher Debbie Greenwood bought ingredients to challenge students in their Iron Chef and mystery basket competition Wednesday.

“They are comfortable with the tools and with the food,” Greenwood said. “So I threw them some curveballs — agave syrup, Israeli couscous. I was walking down the aisles just looking for things.”

The roughly 25 students who take the class and work in the Glendale High Bistro can handle pretty much anything, they said. The young chefs can now do it with a new facility — complete with a walk-in refrigerator, walk-in pantry, full sets of pots, pans, cutting boards, measuring cups, ice cream makers, stainless steel work tables, stoves and an ironclad $250 can opener.

“We didn’t even have plates at first,” Greenwood said. “Now . . . you name it, we have it.”

The redesigned Bistro is more than five times larger than it was less than four months ago. Construction last year turned an English classroom into a full-service catering operation.

“They get to see what a full, professional kitchen looks like,” said Jackie Juarez, a 2003 Glendale High alumna who’s an in-house chef at Nestle Corp. “They are so lucky.”

Students moved in this semester, but their chopping, sauteing and chiffoning (a leafy-vegetable-cutting technique) goes back to before 2000, when students prepared meals for presidential candidate Al Gore, and future Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The kitchen has produced chefs for Simon Cowell, as well as employees for celebrity chefs like Thomas Keller, Greenwood said.

In 2008, students competed against Bobby Flay, a Food Network television star, in a cupcake “throw-down.” This semester, students served meals for an accreditation team of teachers, administrators and district officials from across California who were visiting to review Glendale High’s academic performance and student activities.

“There’s no slacking here,” sophomore Katherine Marquez said while slicing a cantaloupe to accompany her team’s grilled chicken and carrot pasta dish. “It’s a lot of hard work and focus.”

Financially, the Bistro is self-sufficient. Its revenues cover expenses incurred by the introductory-level food classes.