For people who want to learn to cook and people who want to eat, there's no better partnership than the one between the Cooking Up Jobs students and the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 43 in Prince George.
Six students in the Canadian Vocational Training Centre (CVTC) program are at the Legion for the next few weeks offering up delicious options for veterans, members of the Legion and members of the public that would like to take advantage of the great meal deals offered at the downtown location.
The students start the week with a day of book work and then Tuesday is prep day and Wednesday to Friday lunch and dinner options are served.
"I did some soul searching because I wanted to get into something I really enjoyed so I could continue with it and be happy in my career so cooking has been a recent passion of mine so I wanted to pursue it," said student Rosanne Williams, who found her way into the program through WorkBC.
Williams really enjoys the camaraderie with patrons and fellow workers in a commercial kitchen environment and wanted to explore cooking a bit further.
"And this is my opportunity," said Williams about the five-month long course that started with three weeks of theory before the students came into the Legion kitchen.
"I absolutely love it," said Williams. "We get to try new things I've never tried to make before."
Williams worked at a pub before, which she said was mostly flipping burgers, grilling steaks and making French fries.
Now she gets to explore a more refined menu.
"And last week they actually named a dessert after me," Williams said with a big grin. It's a special type of sweet salad that they've named Rosanne's Delight.
"And it went over really well."
Williams said she's learned some great skills that speed up the preparation of the ingredients to be cooked.
"I've learned some knife techniques that I would never have thought of to make things so much quicker and I've never cooked for so many people before," she added.
Meals are prepared for 40 or more at a time.
Williams is used to cooking for four to six people so she's multiplying by at least 10 to get the whole job done.
Chef Paul Hamblin, CVTC instructor, thinks being able to cook for Legion patrons is ideal for the students.
"We have to cook food for the course so the students can be taught so the Legion gives us an outlet to actually do something with the food so it's a good fit," said Hamblin.
Students offer a questionnaire to those at the Legion who have partaken in the meals and the reviews are excellent, said Hamblin.
"The veterans are all great - I haven't met one yet that I haven't liked," he said. "They're very good to us and they treat us like family. For us it's the perfect environment for learning."
Funding for this and other training projects is provided by the Canada-B.C. Job Funding Agreement and it was announced last December by the B.C. government that $336,000 would go to the CVTC Cooking Up Jobs program for 40 participants in Prince George and Kelowna.
