Will C. Wood High School

998 Marshall Road, Vacaville, CA 95687

Phone: 707 453-6900

Culinary Arts

Culinary Arts

Learn the art and science of food preparation while developing professional kitchen skills, creativity, teamwork, hospitality, and real-world food service experience.

Welcome to the Wildcat Kitchen

Will C. Wood Culinary Arts uses the kitchen as a learning laboratory where students gain practical experience in cooking, baking, sanitation, food safety, hospitality, teamwork, and problem solving. Students learn the skills and professional habits used in real food-service environments while progressing through a two-year CTE pathway.

Hands-On Cooking Baking Food Safety Hospitality CTE Pathway

Culinary Arts Instructor

Scott Toebe

Culinary Arts Teacher

Co-Department Chair

Culinary Arts Pathway

CTE YEAR 1

Culinary Arts 1

Culinary Arts 1 provides an entry-level introduction to the food-service industry. Students learn through instructor demonstrations, classroom instruction, and hands-on kitchen lab groups.

The course emphasizes sanitation and safety, basic cooking and baking skills, hospitality management, teamwork, and problem solving.

Culinary Arts 1 Syllabus

CTE YEAR 2 / CAPSTONE

Culinary Arts 2

Culinary Arts 2 builds on the fundamentals learned in Culinary Arts 1 and provides a more advanced understanding of restaurant and food-service skills.

Students continue developing sanitation and safety practices while advancing their cooking, baking, hospitality management, teamwork, and problem-solving skills. Successful completion prepares students to become CTE completers in the Culinary Arts pathway.

What You'll Learn

Cooking Techniques

Develop foundational and advanced techniques for preparing a variety of foods.

Baking & Pastry

Practice baking techniques, recipe execution, precision, timing, and presentation.

Food Safety & Sanitation

Learn professional standards for safely handling, preparing, cooling, storing, and serving food.

Kitchen Tools & Equipment

Learn to identify, operate, clean, and safely use professional food-service tools and equipment.

Culinary Mathematics

Apply measurement, portions, conversions, and recipe calculations in a working kitchen environment.

Hospitality & Teamwork

Develop communication, responsibility, collaboration, problem solving, and professional workplace habits.

Learn by Doing

Your Kitchen Lab is Your Workplace

Culinary Arts is a highly hands-on program. Students work individually and in kitchen teams to prepare food, execute recipes, organize work stations, operate equipment, clean their work areas, and solve the kinds of problems that arise in an authentic food-service environment.

Participation is an important part of the course, and lab days are treated as professional work days.

Preparation Cooking Baking Teamwork Professionalism Clean-Up

Kitchen Lab Expectations

Working in a Professional Kitchen

Students should be prepared for physical demands and working conditions similar to those found in the food-service industry.

Standing and walking on hard surfaces
Working around hot surfaces and steam
Working around wet floors
Lifting and moving kitchen supplies
Using potentially dangerous kitchen equipment
Cleaning floors, work surfaces, tools, and equipment

Required Lab Clothing

Chef jackets are provided for students to use during kitchen lab days.

Students must also wear clean and appropriate clothing suitable for a professional kitchen.

Closed-toe shoes
Long pants
Sleeved shirt
Appropriate clothing for kitchen work

Students who are not dressed appropriately for kitchen safety cannot participate in lab activities.

Culinary Arts Beyond the Kitchen

Travis AFB Junior Spark Challenge

WCW Wildcat Chefs represented Will C. Wood at the Travis Junior Spark Challenge at Travis Air Force Base, where high school students were challenged to develop solutions to real-world issues.

WCW students presented a proposal designed to improve customer flow through a dining facility, combining culinary and hospitality knowledge with collaboration, communication, design, and problem solving.

Will C. Wood Culinary Arts students presenting at the Travis Junior Spark Challenge

Culinary Arts Finals

Creativity, Technique & Teamwork

Culinary students have the opportunity to put their skills together in culminating culinary challenges that emphasize creativity, technique, teamwork, presentation, and flavor.

The winners of WCW's first Culinary Arts Finals created a Korean-style short rib dish with honey sesame toast strips, a fried egg, carrots with chili sauce, crispy rice, and a quick-pickle side dish.

View Culinary Finals Winners

From the Wildcat Kitchen

Developing flavor, technique, and presentation

Baking and dessert preparation

Applying culinary techniques to complete dishes

Hands-on baking experience

Practicing preparation and plating

Chocolate souffle prepared in Culinary Arts

Chocolate soufflé from the Wildcat kitchen

Supporting the Culinary Program

Optional Culinary Arts Donations

Ingredients and kitchen supplies are an important part of providing students with varied hands-on cooking experiences. Families who would like to support the program may make optional donations.

There are no required fees or lab costs for Culinary Arts. Donations simply help expand the variety of ingredients and cooking experiences available to students.

The program can accept items such as grocery-store gift cards, checks, or new and unopened food items as appropriate. Receipts can be provided for donations.

Cook. Create. Collaborate.

Culinary Arts gives Wildcats an opportunity to develop practical food-service skills, creativity, confidence, teamwork, and professionalism while exploring pathways into culinary arts, hospitality, restaurants, food service, and related careers.

Supplies

Binder, pen/pencil for written work. (Come to class prepared)

Course Requirements

The student will be expected to meet the same physical demands and be exposed to the same working conditions typical of the foodservice business

Standing and walking on hard surfaces
Working with hot surfaces, steam, and wet floors
Heavy lifting
Handling potentially dangerous equipment
Heavy cleaning of floors, work-surfaces, tools, and equipment

Required Uniforms for Labs

Chef jackets will be provided for the student to utilize during lab days. The student is expected to wear clean and appropriate clothing such as closed toe shoes (no flip flops or sandals), long pants, a sleeved shirt, and to avoid clothing inappropriate for working in a kitchen. FAILURE TO WEAR PROPER UNIFORM WILL PREVENT STUDENT FROM PARTICIPATING IN LAB WORK LEARNING.

Course Policies

Attendance: It is imperative that students are in class.
Tardies: Students must be in the door by the time the tardy bell rings or they shall be counted tardy.

Class Participation

This is a very hands-on class. In order to get the most out of it you MUST participate. Participation will be monitored. Participation points will be reflected throughout your grade.

Student Expectations

Come to class prepared everyday
Active Participation
Professional behavior towards instructor and classmates
Never be late to lab days (they are your “work days”)

Late Assignments

A student will be marked down for late assignments without a proper excused absences. Missed cooking labs can be made up either at home or an alternative assignment can be given for excused absences.

Donations

Food and other kitchen supplies are the most important part of our culinary class and often times they can be rather expensive and so any help or donations you can provide are greatly appreciated. However, there are no required fees or lab costs for the class, so please do not feel obligated. Donations simply help us provide more unique and diverse cooking experiences with various ingredients that we may not be able to normally afford otherwise. Donations can be in the form of gift cards to grocery stores like Costco or WinCo, checks, new unopened fresh food, and receipts will be provided.

Making the headlines in the local paper! Daily Republic Article, May-22-2023

Daily Republic clipping - From left, Alexander Pham, Kevin Gierak and Christopher Cole of the Will C. Wood Wildcat Chefs show the judges their proposal for improving dining facility flow of customers during the Travis Junior Spark Challenge at Travis Air Force Base, Friday, May 19, 2023. High school students from Solano County and the surrounding areas presented possible solutions to issues that Travis Air Force Base is currently trying to solve. (Aaron Rosenblatt/Daily Republic)