META24 WORKFORCE LAB · GRADED TO THE CORE · PROJECT-BASED · A COURSE IN CULINARY ARTS & HOSPITALITY · MIDDLE SCHOOL · UPPER SCHOOL · GRADE 6–12 · 0.5 CREDIT · META24 LAB COMPETENCIES
Culinary Arts I · the Kitchen
The Kitchen · the line · in Run the Kitchen · Culinary
12 weeks of Run the Kitchen · Culinary: Sanitation & Food Safety · The Knife · Mise en Place & Sequencing · Heat & the Science of Cooking · Stocks & the Five Mother Sauces …
The weeks are the course’s own, read from the lab; the catalog pads the last weeks with the capstone and the floor so the course fills a whole term.
THE MIX · HOW MUCH OF EACH CORE SUBJECT THIS COURSE CARRIES · IN ORDER
SCIENCEREADING & WRITINGHISTORY, GEOGRAPHY & HUMANITIESMATHTECHNOLOGY & TRADESART & DESIGNBUSINESS & ENTERPRISECODING & AI
The squares are a picture of a course — how much of each core subject its own rooms carry, read from the rooms’ text — never a score of a student. Every course in a lab is graded to the core across the board; the squares say which columns it feeds most.
LEADS TO · THE CERTIFICATION
ServSafe Food Handler · ServSafe Manager VIRTUAL OR IN PERSON · issued by National Restaurant Association (ServSafe). Food Handler online; Manager with an authorized proctor — in person or online-proctored.
EVERY CERTIFICATION →WHAT YOU WILL BE ABLE TO DO
- This comes first because it’s the one that hurts people
- The knife is the first craft, and two small changes separate a cook from a person chopping: how you HOLD it (the pinch grip) and how you guide the food (the claw).
- Here’s the secret that separates a calm kitchen from a chaotic one — and it isn’t about cooking at all
- Cooking is applied physics: you’re moving heat into food
AT A GLANCE · 18 WEEKS
Q1 Sanitation & Food Safety → Baking & Pastry — The assignments · weeks 1–9
Q2 Global Cuisine → The capstone, then the floor — The capstone · The Kitchen
ALSO IN CULINARY ARTS & HOSPITALITY · RUN THE KITCHEN · CULINARY
A semester
18 WEEKS · TWO QUARTERSQuarter 1 · Sanitation & Food Safety → Baking & Pastry
WEEKS 1–9 · IN THIS OFFERINGTHE WEEKS · THE ROOMS EACH ONE OPENS
WK 1Sanitation & Food SafetyTHE KITCHEN · THE LINE
This comes first because it’s the one that hurts people. You can make somebody sick — even kill them — with food, and never touch them.
WK 2The Knife
The knife is the first craft, and two small changes separate a cook from a person chopping: how you HOLD it (the pinch grip) and how you guide the food (the claw).
WK 3Mise en Place & Sequencing
Here’s the secret that separates a calm kitchen from a chaotic one — and it isn’t about cooking at all. It’s mise en place: “everything in its place.” You prep completely, arrange completely, and only THEN do you cook —…
WK 4Heat & the Science of Cooking
Cooking is applied physics: you’re moving heat into food. Master the kinds of heat and you can cook anything without a recipe — because you understand what the heat is DOING.
WK 5Stocks & the Five Mother Sauces
This is the architecture of flavor. A great sauce turns a plain piece of protein into a dish, and almost every classic sauce in Western cooking descends from just FIVE “mother” sauces — a family tree Escoffier organized…
WK 6Seasoning & the Palate
This is the week that turns cooks into chefs — because it’s the one nobody teaches explicitly. Every dish is balanced on four levers: SALT, FAT, ACID, and HEAT.
WK 7Protein
Protein is usually the star of the plate and the most expensive thing on it — so cooking it well is where skill shows and where money is saved or wasted.
WK 8Vegetables, Starches & the Plate
Vegetables and starches are where a lot of “home cooking” goes gray and sad — overcooked, crowded, bland — and where a pro makes them the best part of the plate.
WK 9Baking & Pastry
“Cooking is jazz. Baking is engineering.” Where a cook can improvise and taste-and-adjust, a baker works to ratios that are NOT suggestions — a baked good is a chemistry experiment where you set the reaction up front…
THE PROJECT · WHAT THE QUARTER IS FOR
The assignments · weeks 1–9
The question. What does The Kitchen ask you to be able to do by week 9?
The make. Every week's assignment and the quiz as practice: Sanitation & Food Safety · The Knife · Mise en Place & Sequencing · Heat & the Science of Cooking …
The evidence. Handed in through The Kitchen inside Run the Kitchen · Culinary, kept in My Work; the Report reads it from there.
Quarter 2 · Global Cuisine → The capstone, then the floor
WEEKS 10–18 · IN THIS OFFERINGTHE WEEKS · THE ROOMS EACH ONE OPENS
WK 10Global CuisineTHE KITCHEN · THE LINE
This food belongs to these kids. The story of American food is a story of the African diaspora, migration, poverty, and genius — techniques born of necessity that became the most influential cooking on earth.
WK 11Recipe Math & Scaling
This is the quantitative spine of the kitchen — the math that turns cooking into a business. You’ll read a recipe like a professional (seeing the hidden steps), write one another cook can execute, and SCALE a recipe…
WK 12The Line
Everything comes together here — where cooking becomes SERVICE. A restaurant kitchen at full rush is one of the most intense coordinated environments there is: tickets pouring in, multiple tables and courses at…
WK 13–18The capstone, then the floor
The capstone the track ends in, then the floor: the work is done in the room, logged in the room, kept in My Work.
THE PROJECT · WHAT THE QUARTER IS FOR
The capstone · The Kitchen
The question. What does The Kitchen ask you to be able to do by week 12?
The make. Every week's assignment and the quiz as practice: Global Cuisine · Recipe Math & Scaling · The Line · The capstone, then the floor
The evidence. Handed in through The Kitchen inside Run the Kitchen · Culinary, kept in My Work; the Report reads it from there.
A course is a quarter, a semester or a year — nine, eighteen or thirty-six weeks — a project a quarter. Offered as the year, a semester or a quarter, it is the same course seen through a window. A lab is a family: its year, each of its tracks as a course, and its rooms. The evidence is what a student hands in through the room; the Report reads it from there. Nothing in the catalog is a grade.
THE PASS · THIS COURSE AND EVERY OTHER ONE
One pass includes Culinary Arts I · the Kitchen and every course in the catalog. Pick a pass, or enter a school code; checkout stays on this page.