Sergeant Bluff-Luton High School students were chopping, cooking and baking their way to serving up a final grade in their Family Consumer Sciences class at an Iowa Air National Guard kitchen this week.

According to Master Sgt. Christy Groves, the group of students were invited to use the Air National Guard’s new dining facility in Sioux City in order to experience cooking in a large kitchen.

Surrounded by commercial grade equipment, around 50 students split their class time in an immersive experience in the brand-new military kitchen.

During their time in the kitchen the students got to use some of the unit’s new food service equipment as part of their meal preparation class.

With an enhanced eagerness to get out of the classroom that comes at the end of the school year, the group arrived at the 185th Air Refueling Wing kitchen with groceries and a readiness to start cooking.

The menu preparation had students preparing Chicken Quesadilla with Pico de Gallo. Their instructor, Andrea Kuhl also had the group mixing and baking fresh banana bread.

Groves said the students are normally confined to smaller accommodations during their class at the local school that is about a mile away town from the ANG base. The large Air Force kitchen allowed students a little more elbow room as they prepared their prescribed menu items.

The state-of-the-art kitchen at the Iowa ANG unit was finished in 2019 and was a first for the unit where the space was constructed specifically for use as a dining facility.

Groves said the experience also allowed the students to use some of the equipment that her team uses to prepare meals for hundreds of people during the unit’s training weekends.

At the end of the class however the students had nothing to show for their efforts, before returning to school they had all gleefully eaten their assignment.