Braiden Anderson loves making people happy through food. He found his passion for the culinary arts in the kitchen at Foss High School. For the past three years, Braiden learned various cooking techniques, restaurant management essentials, customer service skills, and more through ProStart classes. As a member of the Foss Culinary Club, he’s also had the opportunity to get hands-on experience through competitions and catering jobs. 

With graduation right around the corner, he’s looking forward to a paid culinary internship this summer and attending Bates Technical College in the fall.  

Here’s what Braiden had to say about his experience at Foss and his next steps.  

What’s an accomplishment you’re proud of?    
I’m really proud of the short ribs we did for the Washington ProStart competition this year. It took about a month of planning and testing to get the recipe to work inside a pressure cooker. We took home fifth place.  

What are your plans for next year?   
Next year I plan on going to Bates Technical College for their Culinary Arts program. Bates has their own restaurant in the school, so I’ll have the opportunity to serve other Bates students. I’ll be getting direct, hands-on job experience.   

In the future, I would love to work in a hotel or as a merchant marine cook on a cargo ship. My favorite things to cook are desserts and breakfast. If I can make a good breakfast for people and it brightens their day, then I’ll be happy.  

How has your school experience helped prepare you for that pathway?    
I started ProStart classes at Foss because I liked cooking but wanted to learn more and see if I should pursue cooking any further. Turns out, I love it and can’t wait to pursue it further!  

The catering club here at Foss is an official catering company, so we can cater events out in the community. Last June, we catered a Juneteenth event for Korsmo Construction. We made a seafood boil, sliders, cornbread, collard greens and peach cobbler.  

My teacher, Chef (Erick) Swenson, has pushed me to reach my goals and has encouraged me to try new things in the kitchen. I could see myself being a culinary teacher in the future and helping the next generation of students.  

What's a challenge you've overcome?  
Time management is a big challenge. Waking up and being on time for some of the early morning ProStart events we’ve done was a nightmare at times. But, the early events really showed me what it’s like to be working in the culinary industry and how tiring it can be.  

I also learned how to manage my time in the kitchen. If the recipe says it takes one hour to make, and I take two hours to finish it, then that shows bad time management. When I first started out in ProStart, I had a hard time with this.   

What are you looking forward to next year?  
This summer, I have the opportunity to work at Ascend Prime Steak & Sushi in Bellevue as a paid intern. It’s a nice restaurant and I am very excited to work there. The internship is about 15 weeks long, and interns get to do a little bit of everything during that time. I’ll be working in the bakery, as a line cook, in the front of the house, and more. I’ll also be learning how to make sushi and dry age meat.  

Describe yourself in three words.    
Hardworking. Reliable. Dedicated.