Category Archives: Port Richmond

Port Richmond, Staten Island

Port Richmond Partnership

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Cheryl wrote a similar blogpost and I thought it was an amazing idea, so I thought I’d respond and include my own thoughts. We had the same mentee.

Like Cheryl, I was under the impression they would assign us mentees, and assign them mentors. When we first met them, it was a big free-for-all, like Cheryl said. I think this could have been helped if we were paired up and given a whole class period to get to know each other, with a game or a questionnaire of some sort.
And the mentees had no idea what was going on when we first got there. I think the whole program could have been much better if they were volunteers who were actually looking to have help. Or maybe beforehand, we could have been paired based on our interests. The high schoolers were uninterested in us, like Cheryl said, and this was mainly because they are culinary arts students and we are not. We tried discussing our classes with them, like we were supposed to do, and they had little interest. And they were busy cooking, which I remarked to many people like Brandon Hart who all suggested we invite our mentees to Wagner. My mentee did not have a cell phone, just a number that no one ever answered we were never given their email addresses. I understand many have difficult home lives, but communication could have been improved between the high school and Wagner.
My last thought is the kitchen tour the high school students attended. I think it was strange how the staff and cooks that gave the tour acted as though the students there may only work in a kitchen like Wagner’s, they wouldn’t work in a prestigious restaurant or bakery. I could tell my mentee was insulted by this, and maybe her fellow classmates were, too, but no one was going to say it.

I thought it was nice meeting my mentee, she was very nice even if she didn’t know what to do when Cheryl and I came for our visits. I’m glad I met her, I just wish the program could have helped me do more for her.

My Final Visit to Port Richmond HS

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Last Monday was my last visit to my mentee at Port Richmond High School. For our last meeting, we decided to talk about Thanksgiving and how our families celebrate. My mentee shared that every Thanksgiving he assists his grandmother with cooking the turkey and preparing the rest of the side dishes that are served. Together we discussed the different foods that one would traditionally eat for Thanksgiving including stuffing, string beans, mushrooms, regular potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc. and the variations in preparing them. Through his explanations, I noticed that we have similarities in how we prepare the food that both of our families enjoy on Thanksgiving.

After discussing Thanksgiving, I asked him the questions found on the “Mentee” Student Survey. I wish that we had received this survey earlier in our meetings with our mentee so it could have served as an ice breaker to allow us to get to know our mentees better. I also believe that it would have provided great discussion topics to utilize during our meetings.

Overall, I am happy that I had the opportunity to be a mentor for a student at Port Richmond High School. This was a new and exciting experience for me. I gained new social skills and learned how to be a proper role model for those younger than me. Although I was apprehensive about being a mentor, I really came to enjoy spending my Monday mornings at Port Richmond High School visiting my mentee. I hope that I successfully did my job as mentor and gave my mentee options to consider as he plans for his future.

Port Richmond Mentor Program: My Thoughts

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I was actually looking forward to the mentor program at Port Richmond. I enjoy meeting new people and spreading my knowledge to people younger than I am. With that said, the program was a lot different than what I thought it was going to be. Here’s why:

  1. I thought they would assign us mentees. Because they didn’t, I felt like it was kind of a free for all when we were first introduced to the students.
  2. The mentees did not  have any knowledge of the program. Because of this, they seemed very confused of our presense.
  3. The high schoolers did not seem interested because of the fact they did not sign up to be mentored.
  4. Even though it was interesting to watch them cook, there was very little time to actually talk to the mentees because they were trying to do their work. I felt that I was getting in their way most of the time.

Overall, the experience was good and bad. I enjoyed meeting new people and learning about Port Richmond. The program however was a little disorganized though. In the end, I’m glad that I met my mentee and I hope I had a positive effect on her.

Port Richmond Mentoring

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For the past four Mondays, I have spent my mornings visiting my mentee at Port Richmond High School. I’ll admit, the first time I went I was nervous about meeting with him. What would I say? What would we talk about? We were still very unfamiliar with each other. The only time that we met prior was when we visited Port Richmond High School to introduce the program as a class. For the first meeting with my mentee, I went with Laruen, Shannon, and Kim. I’m sure that this helped make the visitation more relaxed for the mentees, and even for us as well. We decided to sit down for the period as a group and ask each other questions to get to know one another. We were able to learn so much about each other in a less awkward setting. We listened as the mentees spoke about themselves and speculated about what their futures may hold. Each mentee told us a little about themselves, their family, their favorite foods, what they like to cook (they all had a difficult time answering those two), and some other random fun facts that helped us break the ice.

I also discovered a lot about my mentee’s current cooking class. Every Monday, the students receive a new recipe for what they will be tackling that week. In class, they review the recipe in depth and make sure they are familiar with all of the ingredients that are necessary to make the dish. Knowing the ingredients and measurement amounts is very important to a successful dish. For example, one of the recipes my mentee was given called for two eggs, but it did not specify what size. I never realized that the size of the egg matters. My mentee explained that a larger or smaller egg than what was called for by a recipe will disrupt the consistency of the dish. This is now something that I’ll look for and keep in mind whenever I cook or bake.

On Tuesdays, the students begin to gather and prep the ingredients that will be used in the recipe. Actual cooking is reserved for Wednesdays and Thursdays. Every Friday, the students plate and eat the meal that they prepared. This process repeats each week with a new recipe. Although the dishes are typically chosen at random, the class prepared something special during the Mets World Series week. Mini knishes were the fare of choice, since this finger food reflected a menu item served in a baseball stadium.

While I was hesitant at first, I have come to enjoy spending my Monday mornings at Port Richmond High School.  My mentee is a lot of fun, and I look forward to hearing about his cooking experiences. It has been a pleasure getting to know him as I try to help him focus on his plans for the future.

Mentoring

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20151023_123620On Friday, October 23 I visited my mentee named Rebecca at Port Richmond High School. When the class bell rang, the students got straight to work. It was so interesting to see all of them grabbing pots, pans, ingredients, kitchen tools and getting down to business. I asked my mentee what they have done during the past week and what they have made. She told me that earlier in the week they had prepared fried rice and that today they were making chicken stir fry. I paid close attention to the ingredients used and how they made the chicken stir fry. The main components of the meal were chicken, bell peppers, and bok choy. They then added things like garlic, ginger, vegetable and sesame oil to cook the stir fry in. I am not much of a cook myself so to see these high school students handle and maneuver the kitchen in such a professional and knowledgeable manner was really inspiring. After they finished cooking, they started serving the fried rice and chicken stir fry. The room smelled delicious. I got handed a plate and after one bite I was so impressed. It tasted really good. This time around at Port Richmond High School, I learned from Rebecca and her peers more so than she learned from me. I was inspired by these students and their obvious passion for cooking. I suppose the great part of this mentorship project is that I never know what I am going to get. Sometimes I will leave feeling like I learned something new ( as I did that Friday) and other times I hope to inspire my mentee which will leave her feeling as I did after my visit. I can’t wait to see what other dishes, lessons, and advice I will encounter during this mentor partnership with Port Richmond High School. 🙂

Eating a Traditional Knish

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I recently visited Port Richmond High School, and I learned that I have been eating a certain food the wrong way my entire life. I walked into the school’s culinary kitchen and I sat down to eat the food my mentee and his classmates have prepared for my Wagner classmates and I to enjoy. One of the students brought a tray of snacks that looked delicious just from the aroma that it provided. When I asked my mentee (Erik) what they were, he said that they were just a simple knish. I was completely shocked by this; I never had eaten a knish like these before. These knishes were little potato balls made with starch and flour; they also were pointy at the top. My entire life I have been eating knishes that were flat squares and these knishes that I have been eating my whole did not even closely resemble the ones that were provided to my classmates and I that day. I had to even ask the students if these were what actual knishes looked like; sure enough, they had told me that these were traditional knishes. I was so upset that I had been eating knishes wrong my whole life! I was now so intrigued by these knishes that I just had to try them. Sure enough, these knishes were so soft and delicious. It was simple food made with flour, starch, and potatoes, but it was one of the best foods that I have eaten that whole week. What made this food even better was that I was able to eat the knishes with ketchup. I made sure when I got home that day to call out my mom and tell her that she had been giving me “fake” knishes to eat my entire life.

These are the type of flat knishes that I have been eating my entire life.

Mentoring Project

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This past week I visited my mentee at Port Richmond High School. My mentee, Shannon, is one of the students in the class that basically cooks everything. She is not looking to go to college for cooking, but she is very good at it. The meal they made last week was stew fry. They prepared this meal by cutting up vegetables (peppers) one day, making the rice another day and cutting up the rest of the ingredients another day. The last day, Friday, was the day that they put everything together and it was incredible. I was shocked at how good these students were at cooking. They are IMG_6094all very young, 15 and 16 years old, and they can cook a meal better than most adults. Cooking is an essential trait that a person should have. Cooking isn’t just throwing cereal and milk in a IMG_6090bowl, it is knowing how to eat well with certain recipes and ingredients that are essential nutrients in a persons daily diet and these students really understand how to do it. This experimental learning project not only teaches my mentee, Shannon, about my knowledge of food and nutrition, but it also teaches me things about food that I never knew. Each week, Shannon will teach me how to make something new and I will notify her about why each ingredient is important to have in a meal. I feel as if this mentoring program will not only benefit Shannon and other students at the high school, but it will also help me and the rest of the Wagner College students in the program.

Port Richmond Visit

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This Friday some of my classmates and I took a visit to Port Richmond High School as part of our experiential learning mentor project. I sat in on my students cooking class and was totally amazed. We watched the final preparations of Chinese chicken fried rice. Mixing the chicken with the rice and the veggies, the students handled the assignment with ease. I was completely awed by how easily cooking was for them. As someone who is not very often found in the kitchen, I was taken back that even though they are younger than me, they were much more experienced in cooking. I went to the high school thinking I was going to be a mentor, be in fact I learned a lot from the students as well.
I was also glad to have gone on Friday, since it was the day that the meals that were prepared all week were tasted. The high school students gave the Wagner students samples of their chicken fried rice and it was very good! I had a great time at Port Richmond and look forward to going back again.

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My Port Richmond High School Experience.

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The Raiders is the mascot of Port Richmond High School

Being a native of Staten Island, I am shocked that I have never visited Port Richmond High School. About two weeks ago, I had my first chance to see Port Richmond High School when my classmates and I went to the school to introduce ourselves to the students that we would be mentoring who are in the school’s culinary program. I’m not going to lie and say that I was not nervous to meet the high school student that I would eventually have to form a relationship with. I always come across as a shy and quiet person and I thought that it would be difficult for me to talk to a person that I had never even met before. Luckily, I did not have to make the first move because a student named Erik came up to me and just started to talk to me. From that point I was able to talk to him non-stop and shockingly I learned that we both have a lot in common. One of the things that I learned about Erik is that he loves to play basketball; basketball is the sport that has been a huge part of my life ever since I was three years old and I found out that Erik is trying out for the school’s basketball team. The other aspect of our lives that we have in common is that we both want to work in the medical field when we are older. I told Erik that I was going to school to become a nurse and he told me that his dream was to get into John Hopkins University’s medical program; he also told me that if he could not achieve this, he would be satisfied going to a different school that would help him further his education and push him to strive for success. Even though he is just a sophomore, hopefully I will be able to give him advice about what it takes to get into college and how to manage his time once he is in college. I can not wait to see what my future visits to this school has in store for me.

This is the front of Port Richmond High School

 

 

Port Richmond Mentee Visit

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On Friday, I met up with my mentee for the first time since we had first been introduced to one another. We decided to go as a group and meet with out mentees, in order to avoid any awkward pauses and make everyone feel comfortable with one another. While we started off having discussions as a group, we all soon ended up having one on one conversations with our mentees. My mentee and I had a lot to talk about. We discussed everything possible under the time restraint that we had. From where we both lived, to family to different classes we’re both taking and which ones we like or dislike. We even spent a good amount of time even discussing pastries (my mentee wants to become a pastry chef) and which ones were our favorite. She told me how she had taken on the role of making pastries which she would do with her grandmother. We ended up talking about cupcakes and trading ideas on new ways to decorate them now that the holiday season is coming up. This week, the kids were cooking chicken stir fry. I still cannot get over how easy they’re able to make cooking seem, since I’m not much of a cook.  Since it was Friday, we were able to taste what the kids ended up making and it was delicious. Now that my mentee and I are comfortable around one another and enjoying each other’s company I can’t wait to go back!