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Students Take to Cooking in Professional Kitchen

Special-needs students of New Rochelle High School demonstrated their cooking skills Wednesday morning in Don Coqui’s kitchen, preparing a feast that included homemade omelettes, bacon, sausage, salad, a fruit cocktail and a special drink concocted with grapes, pineapples and orange juice.

In Don Coqui’s professional kitchen, chefs helped the students prepare each of the dishes. Today’s event is one of many that New Rochelle High School offers as a way to improve the adaptable lives of its special-needs students. For some, cooking has become an important way to provide some independence to the students, and for others, it’s a potential career.

“To see that each group’s needs can be met by the district shows the diversity of New Rochelle and the breadth of the programs that we offer,” said Board of Education President Sara Richmond.

The students come to Don Coqui about three times a week to work on their cooking abilities. Parents are awed by what some of their children have been able to accomplish in a few short weeks. “After the work I’ve seen her doing here, I’m going to have her cook more at home!” said Joe Marciano, whose daughter, Brianna, has always loved eating but wanted to learn how to cook more. “For her, this is something she can do, so she should do it.”

“She loves it,” said Jean Caltabellotta, whose daughter also attends New Rochelle High School. “She comes home and tells me what she’s learning. She’s come a long way with the cutting. She does a lot more at home than she ever did.”

“What they do here is develop skills for adaptive living,” said Yvette Goorevitch, Director of Special and Alternative Education in New Rochelle. “They learn about healthy eating; they learn to prepare healthy foods, become appropriate consumers, and most importantly develop the adaptive skills to be able to cook for themselves.”

“They’ve done quite successfully beyond my dreams,” she added.

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