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Swapping the gridiron for the griddle-Senior proves that he can take the heat of the field and the kitchen
Photo Credit: Alex Goldman
Senior Austin Scrivener flambes part of a Sunday brunch meal at Yia Yia's Eurobistro.
Written by Alex Goldman, Co-Editor in Chief
High school has long been known as a time to experiment. For some, that experimentation may be joining a bunch of clubs, meeting new friends and going out to different places on the weekends. For senior Austin Scrivener, however, this experimentation meant exchanging his football pads and cleats for a chef’s hat and a cutting board. “It all started with the gym. I would come home after a workout and make myself an omelet. They’re really simple, but you can add anything to change them up. I tried making omelets with all sorts of ingredients,” Scrivener said. After years of being somewhat of a jock, Scrivener had a sudden change of heart. He decided after his sophomore year to quit football and try something new. In March 2010, he got a job at Yia Yia’s Eurobistro as a food runner, delivering all of the different dishes to customers. Seeing the chefs whip up everything from margarita pizzas to a sweet corn risotto, Scrivener quickly realizing his passion for cooking. “It was a few months after I started working [at Yia Yia’s], and I was talking to some of the chefs–just watching them cook and seeing how they made the food–when I really decided that it was something I was interested in. They looked so focused, like they knew what they were doing. I wanted to try it,” Scrivener said. Soon enough, Scrivener was presented with an opportunity. After expressing interest at work, he was invited to assist the chefs at Yia Yia’s, helping them prepare a smorgasbord of foods in the kitchen. He started splitting his time between food-running and cooking. Over this past summer, Scrivener heard about Broadmoor Culinary Center, a program offered through the Shawnee Mission School District that teaches high school students all about the restaurant business. As a Broadmoor student, Scrivener, along with a few other BVN students, is taught the ins and outs of restaurant life. In addition to basic lessons about kitchen safety and sanitation, Broadmoor students take part in a restaurant class where they learn how to virtually run and operate a real-life restaurant. “The restaurant experience is kind of an extracirricular on top of the program itself. You learn how to be a server, how to bus tables and eventually how to cook in a restaurant. It’s like being a real restaurant chef,” Scrivener said. “My ultimate goal is to own my own high-class, five-star restaurant.” In the meantime, Scrivener is working towards that goal by applying to all sorts of culinary schools around the country, like C.I.A (Culinary Institutes of America) and Johnson & Wales. But in the end, it’s the freedom and experimentation in cooking that Scrivner is so taken with. “I love the idea of making new things and experimenting with them. You can take anything you learn how to make and turn it into something else by just adding or swapping things. It’s limitless,” Scrivener said.
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