Colleen Johnson, MS, RD

Teacher, Tenafly High School

cjohnson@tenafly.k12.nj.us

Dear Students and Family,

Welcome to my homepage.  This is my 15th year teaching the culinary classes at Tenafly High School.  We currently have two culinary classes in Family Consumer Science Dept., Experience with Foods and Regional Foods. Each of these are full-year courses.  Experience with Foods focuses on basic to intermediate cooking methods and techniques while also exploring many other topics such as kitchen safety, food safety, food science, nutrition, food purchasing and storage, careers in the food industry and current food trends.

The Regional Foods course is divided into two semesters.  Semester one focuses on the regional foods throughout the United States and semester two focuses on the cultural foods around the world.  Students will learn about the many factors that influence cuisines around the world such as geography, climate, terrain, religion, history, emmigration, economics etc.  They will have the opportunity to sample a wide variety of new foods and learn many new cooking and baking methods and techniques that are unique to each culture.  

Each year, the students in both courses will have the opportunity to visit the prestigious Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, New York.  The students will get a tour of the institute by one of the senior culinary students at the institute and learn what it takes to become a culinary or pastry chef.  Following the tour, we will have a full course lunch at one of the CIA's fine restaurants, which is completely run by the Culinary Institute students.  Although most students do not aspire to become chefs, I am certain that this experience will give them a greater appreciation for the culinary world.