Sahuaro welcomes back Class of 2013 grad, Allison Poirier, the still fairly new addition to our culinary instructor team. Miss Allison, as she likes to be called (makes sense as her last name is a mouthful…pun intended!), realized early in her life, around age 8 or 9, how much she loved being in the kitchen and cooking, which spread deeper into her career choice. After high school, she headed off to the University of Hawaii, where she graduated with a degree in Culinary Arts with a focus on baking and pastry. She utilized her degree and passion for travel when she worked for the Four Seasons hotel chain. This allowed her to hone her craft at several of their hotels, including ones in Maui, Jackson Hole, and New Orleans. Miss Allison decided to travel all over, saying she, “…can’t stand still for too long.”
As every amazing chef has done, Miss Allison has had her own unique and ingenious idea to create a dish that even surprised me as she spoke about it. Miss Alison created a Salted Popcorn Ice Cream, which she said was “so freaking good” while describing it. She divulged a bit of her recipe: You take a crème anglaise, which is milk, cream, and a vanilla bean, then steep it over roughly 10 bags of popped popcorn. After it is steeped, add in eggs and sugar, then bring to a boil and let it chill to have your crème anglaise. A bit of extra sweetness to add is salted caramel sauce.
Another one of Miss Allison’s favorite foods to make is croissants. She talked about how making them is a “labor of love”, and especially how versatile croissants are to make. You can really flavor them any way you would like, but nothing is wrong with a plain buttery croissant.
Ms. Lange, one of her English teachers when she attended Sahuaro, who she credits with helping her overcome a slight bit of dyslexia, stated, “Allison is wonderful. She just started a couple of months ago, but she’s already a part of the Cougar family. I shared Mrs. Watters’ recipe for banana bread with her, and she baked 100 mini loaves to give to the staff. She’s as sweet as her delicious desserts!”
Throughout this new role Miss Allison has created for herself, there are certain things she has experienced that make her feel good about what she does. For one, when she teaches and helps a student make a new dish, she loves seeing that idea, that love for cooking, click in that student’s head. “Seeing that aha moment is super cool,” Miss Allison said about her love for helping students appreciate new recipes and skills.
Everyone has a role model, and it’s good to idolize a person who is in a field you want to go into; one person Miss Allison idolized was the late Anne Burrell. She expressed her love for Anne Burrell, mentioning how she had a cooking show called Secrets of a Restaurant Chef, talking about how it can help a lot of people get better at cooking and improve their culinary skills.
Then Miss Allison mentioned, “The teachers you have are instrumental to who you become”, which is an amazing quote to go out to students who are maybe new to Sahuaro. It’s so important to get to know your teachers, stick with the teachers you may like, nurture your passions, and continue to explore. There are so many teachers here who want to help you succeed.
