Career & Tech Culinary Arts students hope to cook up cash with unique sandwich, pitch song they wrote to fastfood giant

Project Parmella unveiling and news conference features taste test, official song premiere and performance

A fastfood star was born at noon on March 28, 2006 when students in Chef Anders Faltskog's Culinary Arts & Hospitality class officially unveiled Chicken Parmella at the Capital Region Career & Technical School in Colonie. They also presented their original song and marketing strategy for the new tasty sandwich they are offering to McDonald's Corporation.

The students are creating innovative ideas for scholarships to further their Culinary Arts education. They developed Chicken Parmella using an original recipe featuring not only a unique filling but also a specially created roll and an exact preparation process. To help promote their product, the students penned lyrics for a pitch song they sing to an ABBA tune (their instructor has a cousin in ABBA).

They also produced a short marketing video in conjunction with Schenectady Public Access/TimeWarner Cable Channel 16 which they will send to McDonald's. They'll organized the news conference and taste test working with their chef-teacher and their integrated English teacher, Lisa Pye.

Faltskog had long hoped to lead his class in developing such a product, but said he "was waiting for just the right group of students. I'm able to give my current class of seniors a lot of freedom," he noted. "They work extremely well together even when they have differences of opinion and are doing great work in our American Culinary Federation curriculum."

Bethlehem High School senior Christina Avery puts it simply. "We are more interested in making sure everything is done perfectly than in not getting along."

The Parmella Project began in earnest in January 2006, when Faltskog gave the students a basic chicken parmigiana recipe and challenged them to come up with a product worthy of national tastebuds. Hours spent perfecting their recipe in the kitchen would be matched by those spent in front of the computer and in classroom huddles. Working with Faltskog and integrated English teacher Lisa Pye, the students had to develop a flowchart and timeline, business plan and goals, formal proposal and marketing strategy.

They went online to research the business practices and product trends of fastfood companies. They examined customer demographics to determine their own target consumers and select a company to which they would pitch Chicken Parmella. They met with an attorney experienced in intellectual property and copyright law to learn how to protect and market their ideas. The students also engaged their peers in Career & Tech's CAD/CAM program in packaging design and the Computer & Network Technician program in DVD label design.

To promote Project Parmella, the Culinary Arts students appeared on Dolores Scalise's "Schenectady Today" program on Cable Access Channel 16.

From an educator's point of view, the Parmella Project enabled students to not only advance their career-related skills but also to meet New York State Learning Standards in English/Language Arts through research and interpretation, written and oral communication, presentation skills and group interaction.

From a student's point of view, the Career & Tech Parmella Project was an "opportunity to do things we never did before in school. My favorite part was writing the song lyrics," said Bethlehem High School senior Cody Crowder, "although it was hard at first to work with the ABBA melody. I usually write rap, but the lyrics got easier as we got into it."

[3/29/06]