Rev. Fr. Ranjith Andradi, the Rector of St. Joseph’s College, Colombo 10 and Rev. Fr. Priyan S.Tissera, the Principal of the Primary School with young Josephian chefs

Ms Shyamalie De Wansa, Deputy Principal, Middle School observing culinary expertise of young students

Cooking skills assist in meeting nutrition guidelines and help people make healthier food choices. Thus, it is essential to teach students to understand the importance of cooking and motivate them to learn basic cooking skills.
Learning cooking skills as a skill is a great choice for anyone. It helps us increase our knowledge of different cuisines and flavours around the world. Becoming more aware of how meals are constructed means you will pay more attention to what you eat, which will result in smarter, more delicious and healthy choices.

Cooking teaches critical thinking, collaboration and creativity. Cooking is a life skill and supports Maths, Science, Language, Social Emotional Development, Physical Development and Cognitive Development.
In these contexts, the students of Grade 05 of the Primary School of St. Joseph’s College, Colombo 10 organized a food festival recently at the College  Premises.
This idea was the brainchild of Rev. Fr. Ranjith Andradi, the Rector of St. Joseph’s College, Colombo 10 and it was arranged by Rev. Fr. Priyan S. Tissera, the Principal of the Primary School, the Class Teachers and the subject Teachers in the Grade 05 section.   
The students wore the attire of a chef. Attired with the apron and the chef’s hat as original chefs children in each class had dressed in  different colours and named themselves accordingly, red the “Master Chefs”, blue the “Cooking  Monsters”, yellow the  “Ceylon  Chefs”, green the “Cooking Busters”, orange the “King Cooks”, purple the “Captain Cooks” and pink the “Fine Chefs”.  

While the students were busy making the food items there was Chef Charitha Anuradha, Chef  Piyatissa Silva from Vertical by Jetwing, also Mr. Kanishka  Kulathunga the General  Manager of Verticle by Jetwing was present. Chef Sudamika Bandara the  Executive Sous-chef from Cinnamon Grand Hotel and Chef  Kingsly Weerasinghe the Executive Pastry Chef and  Chef Upul   Malawarachchi the Sous-chef from Kingsbury Hotel were present.
When all classes completed the task of making the food items they presented  it in a common high tea platter. The veteran Chefs chose the Winner, 1st  Runner-up  and the 2nd Runner-up. 
The 2nd Runner-up were the students of Grade 5 S6 they were known as    “Captain Cook” the 1st Runner-up were the students of Grade 5 S5  known as “Cooking  Monsters” and the “Winners were the “Ceylon Chefs”, the students of Grade 5 S2” who made the food items with the traditional ingredients namely  cutlets made of polos, pancakes with pani pol, mango juice  etc. The grand finale ended with the awards ceremony.