For many people, their first experiences with cooking come at a young age. The smells and sounds of their home kitchen, family restaurant or outdoor grill create a special environment for them. But for junior Tex Davison, his journey began with making toast.
At 13, Davison’s cooking knowledge consisted of just cereal and toast. In his own words, he was not considered a cooking genius.
Coming to the school from Australia as a freshman, Davison didn’t know anybody or have his own community. He didn’t even have an advisory, until history teacher Michele Santosuosso picked him for her own. A new student without a place in the school, he was taken in by Santosuosso.
“I was the only kid left without an advisory,” Davison said. “(Santosuosso) was the person who integrated me into St. Mark’s. High school would have been a lot different if she hadn’t picked me.”
Davison’s interest in cooking grew after he listened to Santosuosso’s advice for how he could find his place at the school.
“I didn’t really care to learn how to cook,” Davison said. “Then Mrs. Santosuosso told me that I should say yes to every challenge that came my way in the following semester. She told me to join the Elevated Cooking Club, and that’s where I found my passion for cooking.”
Since its founding in 2017, Elevated Cooking Club’s presence on campus has grown, providing food for Coffeehouses, bake sales and more. Davison is now one of the co-chairs, and he aspires to continue to bring in more members in the coming years.
“Joining Elevated is what you make of it,” Davison said, “We’re one of the biggest clubs on campus, and there’s a bunch of guys who send us videos for Instagram and cook for coffehouses and get involved.”
Davison sees cooking as a hobby and skill that all students at the school should take the time to learn.
“We’re just trying to inspire more kids to cook because it’s really such a great skill to have,” Davison said. “Especially going into college, it will be a life skill that will help you down the way.”
Santosuosso’s journey to cooking and baking was a bit different than Davsion’s. What started as an interest turned into a passion. She began baking in high school, with her initial interest coming when she realized how mathematical baking was.
“I loved how baking was more like a science,” Santosuosso said. “Exact measurements, where if you don’t use enough or use too much of something, can completely mess up the cake.”
While the precise parts of baking interested Santosuosso, she struggled with the creative aspect of it. In order to become better at the technique of decorating that comes with baking, she got a job at a local bakery, where she worked during the summers of her college career.
Although her coworkers attempted to teach Santosuosso how to correctly ice a cake, she just couldn’t get the hang of it.
“One day the owner of the bakery came in and asked me how I was doing,” Santosuosso said. “I told him I hadn’t been getting along so well with decorating. When he asked me to show him how I had been icing, it turned out that I had been taught how to decorate like someone who was right-handed, rather than left-handed.”
This revelation was all it took for Santosuosso to fall in love with baking. She continued branching out further into cooking throughout the following years.
“I had a fascination with the flavors and presentation that came with cooking,” Santosuosso said. “At first, I wasn’t too good at it, but I was determined to become great at it, so I practiced and remade dishes in my college dorm.”
Santosuosso’s first experiments with her dishes were given to her brother for him to taste test. After he was deployed overseas, she still wanted to keep him involved in her culinary life, so she made an Instagram account so he could see all her dishes: Naked Eye Food.
Once she made a separate account for her baking, the Instagram accounts began to gain traction, and people began asking Santosuosso to make cakes for their events.
Once Santosuosso was able to harness her skill for decorating cakes, she found ways to mix her creativity with specificity.
“When someone asks me to make them a cake, I ask for specific instructions on the design,” Santosuosso said. “It allows me to feel creative while still giving them exactly what they want, and it’s a super rewarding experience to be able to give that to someone.”
Whether it’s through a carefully decorated cake or a dish shared at Coffeehouse, both Davison and Santosuosso agree that baking is a passion worth pursuing.
