After a long time of deliberation, we’ve finally pushed through with launching our Filipino Cuisine day for our Professional Program at the school. To me, the preservation and passing on of those traditional ways of Filipino cookery is just as important as knowing all these methods that Careme made…I feel actually that this is much closer to our hearts and would one day be clouded by the invasion of the “new ways” which, more often than not, leads to a bunch of shortcuts when done improperly.

The Filipino day on the CACS Professional program fixes this up by letting our students step back and learn the methods of how the “old” people used to do. Everything was lovingly made from scratch, and they also butchered a native chicken for this activity day for the chicken tinola.

My part of the job after coordinating and making sure everything goes smooth? Eating. And deciding which portions seem too large for the class and which ones we should improve on if any. Our Cafe Ysabel chef, who is an alumnus of the school couldn’t help but tell the students how lucky they are since this is a new and improved part of the program.

And so…without further ado…the food made from scratch and the wonderful students who made them.

I’d like to congratulate Chef Lawrence Zafra who made this project his baby and saw it all the way through the launch and implementation.