Photo By Ahyoung Nguyen Sophomore Keven Araujo scribbles down ingredients and ideas in his notebook to plan for his next unique one-of-a-kind culinary concoction.
Araujo stirs pot of passion
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By Ahyoung Nguyen and Sunhi Nguyen
With fresh tomato sauce and boiling spaghetti on the stove top, sophomore Keven Araujo was inspired by his mother and grandmother to cook. At the age of 9, he had a moment in the kitchen when he was cooking his first dish, grilled cheese. He burnt the bread, but that did not stop him from pursuing his dreams to become a chef.
“I don’t mind being a chef,” Araujo said. “I have dedication [and] commitment. I know that I will work [hard].”
For his history class, Araujo treated them to a creamy pasta dish he made.
“Keven’s pasta was amazing,” classmate sophomore Johnathan Kyin said. “It had a lot of flavor and it took a long time to cook.”
Araujo explained that he is basically a head chef— the main cook in the family— and usually cooks for his family very often or he helps around in the kitchen.
“I do it about three times in a week to help out my mom or I just cook an entire meal for myself,” Araujo said.
Beside cooking, he also likes to bake basic desserts such as cakes, cookies, and cupcakes. If he has a choice to choose baking or cooking, he would choose cooking.
“It’s my honest choice to choose cooking because I have passion for it,” Araujo said.
His grandmother insisted that women should not be the only ones in the kitchen. By listening to her words, Araujo wanted to follow in his grandmother’s footsteps and learn to cook for himself.
“My grandma taught me [how] to cook because she always told me that I [will] never need a woman to cook for me,” Araujo said. “She wants me to be independent and my mom agrees with her.”
Araujo disagrees with the idea that “a woman’s place is in the kitchen.” He wants to stop the stereotyping that only women should be the ones cooking.
“Personally, I believe that guys should be in the kitchen as well because we are capable of cooking, right?” Araujo said. “We all capable of breathing, then why can’t we be capable of doing the same thing.”
Araujo wants to encourage those wanting to become chefs to not be afraid of making mistakes and to keep on cooking and practicing.
“Once you burn your food, it doesn’t mean burn your passion for it,” Araujo said.
