By: Assistant-Editor-in-Chief
Chasen Shao ‘15
Cherry Hill West has a lot to be proud of. Along with brilliance in sports and music, a wide array of scintillating events like the Spaghetti Bridge Contest, the Spring Musical, the Art Show and many others are definitely an important aspect of our school of character that all students and teachers hold highly.
As May replaced April on our calendars, the World Language Department here at West was preparing for a similarly exciting event: The World Language Cook-Off. May 23rd, 2014 marks the seventh annual cook-off. In 2013, the cook-off was phenomenal, and the expectations were raised especially high. However, these high expectations were no challenge for this year’s cook-off participants to overcome and completely surpass.
This year, the World Language Cook-Off kept its long held tradition of the participation of the Italian, Spanish, Latin, and French classes. However, 2014 also brought in an all-new member to the cook-off tradition: The African-American Culture Club. Although this year the club did not participate in the cook-off competition, the presence of the club represents a broadening of the horizons of the cook-off to accommodate for all traditions around the world. In fact, in 2015, plans are already underway to bring the Asian Culture Club into the World Language Cook-Off.
With this new addition to the cook-off, the atrium area of the New Auditorium was packed with students busily setting up tables and racing against time to put on the best show by the time the 2014 World Language Cook-Off was underway. Walking through the atrium area, one could easily appreciate the hard work of these students. Some tables had so much that they could hardly hold both the informational poster coupled alongside the steaming three-course-meals.
Anyone who got a chance to visit the World Language Cook-Off area during the day could feel the sense of excitement that electrified the brightly lit atrium area. Event coordinator Señora Rivas-Mintz commented “The feedback is the best one ever.” Along with the incorporation of the African American culture in the cook-off this year, Señora Rivas-Mintz also opened up a new-and-improved judging system that expanded the judging to all teachers and administrators in the entire school. All members of the staff could participate in the judging process, whereas before this year, the judging was limited to specific judges.
Overall, the 2014 World Language Cook-Off could only spell success. Señora Rivas-Mintz stated her satisfaction for this year’s program profusely: “I really enjoyed the cook-off this year. Many of the kids are much more prepared and I am happy to see that much of their hard has paid off.” This great work by the students definitely has paid off in the appetite of the judges this year. However, this year’s cook-off will also set the bar higher for future years and lead to a better World Language Cook-Off for 2015.