Feeding a crowd of hundreds doesn’t make Kenny Seals-Nutt nervous.
In fact, he thrives in the kitchen. He’s in his perfect place when dicing tomatoes, making salads and baking cakes.
By the time Kenny, 16, reached his third year of high school at Hickory Grove, North Carolina, US, he had become vice president of his school’s cooking club. He also opened his own food company, called Modern Fusion.
Kenny said he developed his love of cooking by watching his mother, and his grandmother, who owned a catering (饮食业) business herself. Kenny helped them both in order to remember their tips: how long to cook chicken so it stays wet, and the right amount of tomatoes to add to a spaghetti dish.
At the age of 5, he cooked his first dish of shrimp and broccoli. Taking it for his school lunch, he warmed it up in the school’s microwave, while the other kids ate their sandwiches.
“I love to eat, and it started to become more fun to cook than to use a microwave,” he said.
Cooking came easy to Kenny, and he enjoyed adding new ingredients into common dishes. “It started with a passion (热情) and I wanted to know more,” he said. He began to watch the Food Network and read chef blogs.
Last summer, Kenny put his skills to the test by working with his grandmother to cater his uncle’s wedding. While she cooked traditional dishes, Kenny wanted to add new to the expected flavors (风味).
Now Kenny spends his weekends catering his own events: weddings, birthday parties, baby showers. Kenny’s dishes are always a hit.
Chef Frederick Mookie Hicks, owner of a catering business, said Kenny’s success comes from his ability to multitask in the kitchen. Hicks said he has asked Kenny to cook with him on jobs three times now, and he presents Kenny as a positive example of a passionate chef to the students in his cooking classes.
“He’s so vigorous (精神饱满的) about cooking that he doesn’t let anything stop him,” Hicks said. “I knew in the first five minutes of working with the kid that he is something special.”
【小题1】How is Kenny different from other students?