Some students play sports or music as an escape from the stress of school work, but Hovard cooks. He says, “It helps me get away from my daily life”
He started cooking at the start of the pandemic, he explains, “I went down a rabbit hole [watching] Gordon Ramsay YouTube videos. Then I found one of his burger [videos] and the next morning I was like, ‘Mom can I make this?’ And then it just kinda evolved from there.” Hovard enjoys making food for his friends and family because it’s a way for them to bond and build memories. Hovard expresses, “We come together and spend an hour just talking about food and hanging out together.”
Hovard has already envisioned a future for himself, he explains, “I’m planning on doing private catering and private meals for small groups of people and using whatever profits I make to donate to charity. I want to use my love for cooking to help people.” Earlier this year, he and some of his friends organized a food drive at the upper school for VEAP which is a nonprofit organization that helps to provide food to people in need. Hovard has spent over 200 hours volunteering there the past two summers. He says, “It’s a food shelf where we give out food and we take in orders. I use my Spanish knowledge to help those that can only speak Spanish or have very limited English.”
This past summer Hovard also helped to cater a bridal party for his neighbor’s niece. This experience was quite a process; he spent a lot of time with the menu to get everything just right. He says, “We talked through the entire menu, like what flavors would work well together and just how many people there were and what I should do.” He continues, “Then two months later, I had tried every recipe that I was going to make at least once.” He adds, “I made salmon, open faced rustic sandwiches, shots of cold pea soup, and lavender lemonade.” His idea behind this menu was to have a consistency of flavors throughout the menu. Lemon, garlic, and rosemary were his staple flavors for this palette.
Cooking is very special to Hovard, he says, “I think everyone should try [it] because it’s something that you’ll need to learn eventually, and using it as a hobby instead of as a chore makes it more fun to do.”
