Long Beach City College’s Basic Needs program and the Community Advancing Student Achievement (CASA) program introduced students to Japanese recipes, teaching students how to make fried rice and jasmine milk tea boba as the final interactive cooking experience on Friday.
The program was created to educate and encourage students to incorporate meal preparation in their lives, with recipes that are designed to be prepared at home, serve multiple guests and to encourage students to cook together.
“Cooking with CASA class experience is a really great way for people to not only feel connected as a group and break bread with food, but it also introduces people to different recipes that they may not experience in their regular lives,” Basic Needs assistant Christian Davis said.
The last installment of Chop it Like it’s Hot cooking series this semester featured a Japanese Hibachi cooking style with ingredients provided by the Viking Vault.
While cooking their fried rice, participants were given the option of spam as their protein, giving students the chance to incorporate ingredients they wouldn’t normally use into their meals.
“What a different way to see how spam can be utilized to make different types of food,” student Christopher Kosareff said.
This was the first year LBCC has hosted an interactive cooking series designed to educate students on easy, at-home recipes.
“I like the Chop it Like it’s Hot Series and the community that it builds. We are all together learning how to prepare a meal and getting some of the items to prepare the meal at home,” student Marja Needham said.
The CASA success coaches plan on continuing the Chop it Like it’s Hot series in the future since it has proved to be beneficial for students and provided them with healthy and easy meals that can be prepared at home.
“We hope this program continues next year and allows more students to try out new cultures and to make new friends. It has been such an enriching experience,” said CASA Success Coach Luz Diaz.