Kinnan's favorite course at Explo is the Cooking Challenges class. If his favorite dish to make (Mediterranean Kabob Wraps with Cilantro Tabbouleh sauce) is not enough to impress, then perhaps the fact that this dish took him to the White House to meet the President will.
This is my second year, and it’s already even more amazing than last year. Already classes have been much more hands-on and much more in-depth than you would expect. Last year, I really liked my living group, my RAs, the staff, and all my classes. So I guess basically everything! I really like how the staff interacts with the students. They can really connect with students in a way you don’t really hear about happening at school. I’m homeschooled, so my mom teaches me. The classes are really hands-on here and interactive in a way that I haven’t gotten to experience before.
My favorite class that I’ve taken is the Cooking Challenges. I love cooking and it’s something I’ve done for a long, long time. It’s so much fun doing it with all your friends and the awesome staff! Asking me my favorite thing to cook is like asking me who my favorite kid is — if I had kids. But my signature dish that I cook a lot and enjoy cooking is my Mediterranean Kabob Wraps with Cilantro Tabbouleh sauce. That recipe I got from my grandmother and my mom. I actually modified it with ground turkey instead of lamb because I was entering the White House’s Lunchtime Challenge and I actually got picked from Rhode Island to do the Kids’ State Dinner at the White House! It was amazing: we visited the garden, met the First Lady, and met the President! It was phenomenal!
It’s definitely something I want to do when I’m older. I’m hoping to use the Running a Business class here at Explo to learn how to open my own restaurant someday, because I know I have some skills in the kitchen but I don’t know how to run a business. That’s what’s so great — that Explo offers cooking classes and entrepreneurship classes so I can broaden my spectrum of knowledge and use it for what I want to do in the future.
Ally Marcino