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Anusuya’s Youth Voice – No 4

Maybe a fun Blogpost?

As a teenagers life goes on, we don’t realize how many qualities we have in us. We’re still at a stage where we don’t even know what really makes us happy, sad, interested, or even excited even to want to finish it. In my high school career, I have noticed that there is a lot of exploring involved, like meeting new people, finding your true self, what you like, hate, et cetera. Even though we are judged by our peers about what we do, our deep rooted values and our personality are what makes us get through the rest of our life. I have been writing a lot about the class and what it’s like to be in a “company”, but this time I wanted to bring in a personal touch to the CEO’s corner and give an insight of how I got involved in Nextcourse and came here.

It wasn’t easy moving from a different country and landing up freshmen year here in San Francisco, and in a whole different schooling system. It’s a grueling process of assimilating and getting with the flow of things. We have mood swings and tantrums due to the fact that pressure of uncertainty hits us. It’s not fun being a teenager who keeps travelling like me, because you don’t make a lot of close friends, but the connections you make with people are very valuable. It’s sometimes frustrating to be a teenager too, for me it was when I didn’t know what I loved to do. I remember when I would do my homework and after didn’t know what to do besides facebook and texting my friends. It was like a soul -searching process. What do I like to do? What makes me happy? It wasn’t until my junior year in high school I realized that writing makes me happy. It was a feeling of happiness and fulfillment when I write due to the fact that it comes straight from my heart.  But it’s interesting to see when adults say that teenagers don’t care, are to self- centered, and selfish to know what’s up with the world. I want to tell those adults that try discovering what you love, have the pressure of growing up, and changing backgrounds. It’s not that we don’t care, it’s more like we have to pay attention to what we need and focus in on that time.

See earlier posts:

No 1, No 2, No 3

Anusuya’s Youth Voice – No 3

What happens in the class besides the snack product?

Welcome back to an all new episode of the Nextcourse “Teens on greens” blog center, with your host, Ms. Anusuya Mukherjee (aka the CEO in training). Ah, imaginations, one can only imagine such ideas. Welcome back readers; hope you have enjoyed a teenager’s insightfulness on food and her witty behavior in writing. So far at school, I am on my spring break and enjoying the fact that I have only 2 months left before I graduate, exciting!!! My second pieces of writings will be published in 2 months time also, under the anthology by Writerscorp. I have also gotten over my senioritis, so thank you for asking.

Since I write about what’s happening in the class, in this blog post I wanted to focus on the “Eat Ur Veggies” class we had this Wednesday. Personally, I don’t like cooking, so in these classes I focus on how the food is being made. It’s interesting to see how food brings people together. The class that comes for the training is learning English as a second language. My “employees” all know a second language besides English. I’ve known that in the business world it is very important that your company is more approachable to different communities. I’m not a business person and I think that the business world is too complicated for me, give me an experience and I’ll write about it- that seems like a better way to describe what I am doing. The students enjoyed every bit of the class and they also asked what certain things are called in their language.   The class seemed to enjoy every part of the process and so did I.

2nd Annual Veggie Fiesta – May 14th

SAVE THE DATE!!

New Soul Food Cooking Class

Vera getting the baking sheets ready

Hey everyone it’s me Vera!  I know I have yet to check in with you all since starting  my internship with Nextcourse Soul Food project. Well things are looking up for me doing this internship.  First, let me tell you that I have a lot of things going on, but it’s all good! We’ve embarked on an evening cooking class called Cooking Matters.

Now this is an interesting class of women with various levels of cooking skills, who have  different preferences and practices, and different styles of cooking, but in the short of it all they all want the same thing — to be able to feed their family healthier food with different options at affordable prices.

My experience with this group of women is that they’re real eager to learn, listen, participate, and try new foods. They’re a very willing bunch of diverse women determined to make a big difference to their family and themselves.

I believe that each woman is benefitting from the classes, they are able to share a new experience creating and making new friends, being able to read a recipe, enjoy what they are making and look forward to the next session.  Also, with them using the ingredients that’s provided for them to re-create the meal at home, it gives them a sense of assurance.

Last week’s class we had a blast and the women enjoyed it very much!  I can tell from the “ahhhs” and the gleeful expressions the women had on their faces as they feasted on Jerk Chicken & Caribbean Orzo Salad.

These ladies were so enthused with learning to cook a different ethnic food that I was impressed with this class as a whole. These ladies learned how to make a jerk marinade (see recipe below), how to cook and use whole wheat pasta (Orzo) and make a dressing to go over the pasta.

Jerk Marinade

Jerk Chicken and Orzo Salad

 

2 tablespoons ground black pepper

4 teaspoons nutmeg

4 teaspoons ground ginger

4 teaspoons allspice

4 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons salt

3 tablespoons agave nectar, honey or molasses (your choice of which sweetener)

2 jalapenos, seeded and diced, scotch bonnet peppers or habaneras peppers (depends on how spicy you like it!)

1 clove garlic minced

4 green onion tops chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

Zest and juice of one lime

2 tablespoons white vinegar

8 oz of pineapple juice and fruit

Directions: when preparing the marinade it’s easier to place ingredients into a blender to get everything blended into a paste which would be easier for rubbing onto the chicken, be sure to use gloves because the spices can settle into skin. It’s recommended to let marinade set over night on the chicken. Pre-heat oven @350F. Let chicken cook about 50 to 60 min. Chicken is done when juices run clear(not pink). Enjoy

This recipe is from www.pcfma.com, revised by Vera Pittman