C-CAP Students in “Pressure Cooker” Competition (06/09)

 

 

Culinary High School Students in a  “Pressure Cooker” Competition

 

The dim high school rooms inside match the dingy Pittsburgh neighborhood outside, where students know they are destined for the most menial of jobs or none at all in the film, “Pressure Cooker,” which documents how one culinary program can give them a future.  It could be a school almost anywhere in Los Angeles, which has held similar programs since 1985.

 

Fighting to overcome the challenges of broken homes, abusive pasts, and financial burdens, “Pressure Cooker” follows three inner-city seniors at Philadelphia‘s Frankford High School for a year.  The star is their tough-love mentor, instructor Wilma Stephenson, as she leads her class to prepare for a citywide cooking competition for scholarships to several of the country’s top culinary arts institutions.  Stephenson does not need to remind anyone about her track record of helping students earn a quarter-million dollars in scholarships since the program started, but she does as needed, and in the beginning it is often.
 

A legend in the school system for helping students for 38 years, the attractive Mrs. Stephenson is loud and fierce.  Her intense focus is contagious; when it is not, she kicks students out of her class.  But she is also caring enough to allow her students to attend cheerleading practices and competitions, football games, and encourages even them to enjoy the big school dance at the end of the year—help one girl buy a prom dress –  and the year culminates with a pool party at her house.

 

The background of this story is the national C-CAP program (Careers in Culinary Arts Program) started by Richard Grausman in Manhattan.  It shows how when used to its fullest, one teacher can spark a national life-changing difference by giving students an opportunity for a full-time, well paying and in-demand occupation.

 

Drill-sergeant Stephenson, who looks like a brash attractive best-friend-to the-heroine- actress you’ve seen in a thousand sitcoms (think Eve Arden in Our Miss Brooks) runs this no-nonsense  culinary arts classes at Frankford High School in Northeast Philadelphia.

 

As presented in this documentary, directed by Jennifer Grausman (daughter of the C-CAP founder) and Mark Becker, Frankford is an all-black high school, so tough that  the students must pass through a metal detector each morning.  A car ride with an official through city streets shows without emotion the state of the rundown neighborhood, once a thriving industrial center.

 

“Pressure Cooker” hones in on three likable junior chefs who blossom under Mrs. Stephenson’s guidance, starting with Erica Gaither, victim of a broken home and a loving, surrogate mother to her blind, disabled younger sister. Erica is also a competitor on the school’s  award-winning cheerleading team – and Mrs. Stephenson cheered the loudest at one filmed competition.

 

Tyree Dudley, an all-state football player, struggles to balance athletics and academics.  Recent immigrant from Mali, Fatoumata Dembele, values Frankford High as paradise.  It has running water and she does not have to walk miles to and from it daily as she did with her former rural African school.

 

So the stage is set.  The film tracks their progress with classic culinary techniques through the year in class – including the sessions that begin at 6AM during winter vacation-  and offers a general view of their home life without drama.  It is a realistic view but because of the unsophisticated filming technique the dialogue is often difficult to understand and the viewer must pay close attention to follow each student.

 

Unfortunately, “Pressure Cooker” never explains the culinary arts curriculum or kitchen set up, so we never learn how things fit together, such as how the repetitive cutting of vegetables into certain shapes fits into the larger scheme of things.  We are also not given a full picture of the competition, something most audiences are used to from the current reality shows.

 

The documentary ends with the excitement of the C-CAP (Careers Through Culinary Arts Program) competition and the awards breakfast afterward where the scholarships are announced. And, as usual, Ms. Stephenson’s pupils are big winners.

 

Directed By Jennifer Grausman (the C-CAP founder’s daughter) and Mark Becker, “Pressure Cooker” was produced by Grausman, along with Executive Producers: Jeff Skoll, Diane Weyermann. The Editor was Mark Becker, and the music was scored by Prince Paul, Donald Newkirk

As luck would have it, inner city and minority students were given the opportunity to view the film when it was first distributed in 2008.  And teens would be the target audience to be encouraged by the hard-won but unwavering support of Stephenson, who dared her students to reach for opportunities they never could have otherwise imagined.  

 

However, this year, when LAUSD cut back the city-side agreement to have the C-CAP program in high schools, it is truly a time when every student, parent and voter should see the film.