Archive: Around Town

Stacie KroppIf you happen to be watching the Food Channel next Thursday (12/08 at 8:00 pm TW Cable channel 44) and think you recognize people and locations on Emeril show, you'll be right. Lansing Middle School English teacher Stacie Kropp and her students are appearing on the "Emeril's Holiday Cookie Contest" episode, which will also be airing throughout December.

Last year Ms. Kropp was one of four winners out of 1500 entries. She invented the recipe about five years ago, and likes to make it for friends. When she decided to enter the contest last year she realized she needed a name for it, so she held a contest for her sixth graders. The class that made up the best name would get a batch of the cookies, baked by their teacher. The sixth period class won the cookies, dubbing them "Winter Fresh Fudge Bars."

The contest required an original recipe and an essay that told it's story. Ms. Kropp wrote about the naming contest in the essay, and she thinks that helped her win. "I think what really pulled my recipe through was the fact that I was a teacher and I had kids involved, and that the kids came up with the name," she says.

The producers were so taken with her story that they decided to film kids making the recipe. "I was a little nervous," says Ms. Kropp. "It's not an easy recipe, and the kids didn't have the cooking experience."

Three of the four winners pose with the show's producer

So she decided to rehearse them. "Wegmans donated ingredients so we could practice after school." There was only about a week between being notified and filming." She split the students into groups, and got advice from Social Studies teacher Maureen Trowbridge about how best to get them involved and how to write the recipe in a way they could easily follow. "They loved practicing, because they got to eat them!"

"The kids practiced and practiced," Ms. Kropp says, "and the producer said he'd never seen a bunch of kids so cooperative and so ready. He was really pleased by how ready they were and how seriously they took it. It went well."

On December 10 of last year the Food Channel filmed the kids baking in the Home and Careers room, then recreated the name contest in Ms. Kropp's classroom. They also filmed in the auditorium, and at her home. Principal John Gizzy allowed the kids a relaxed schedule for the filming day, and Ms. Kropp took personal days to get her hair done and prepare for the event, and for the day they filmed.

Winter Fresh Fudge Bars back stage

The recipe is a clever merging of ingredients. She started with a double chocolate brownie. Next she added cheese cake. Someone had given her a bottle of Creme de Menthe, and not being a drinker she was looking for a way to use it. Baking for friends who like chocolate mint, she added it to the cheese cake, which she then swirled into the brownie. A chocolate mint frosting was topped with crushed candy canes.

"People loved them so I kept making them," she says. She can't release the recipe until the show airs on December 8th, when it will be published on the Emeril Show Web page. The head of Food Services at school, Suzanne Wixom, has asked for the recipe so they can be served to the students.

Ms. Kropp loves baking, and has thought of doing it professionally. She fantasizes about baking cookies some day in her own bakery in Lansing. She likes old fashioned style recipes, and bakes for fun two or three times a week. From time to time she bakes cookie platters for people, but for now baking is a hobby.

Getting the kids involved in the show was a help in the classroom. Ms. Kropp says kids love Emeril and shows like 'Iron Chef.' "Some of those game show type food shows really appeal to the Middle School aged kids. That's why I use some of his phrases in (English class), because they know them. When we're going to go from paragraph to essay I call it 'kicking it up a notch' and they latch onto that. They get it."

Ms. Kropp reports that Emeril didn't make the recipe quite right. First of all, they gave him clear Creme de Menthe. He tried to make up for it with green food coloring, resulting in a bright aqua green. And baking recipes on television doesn't go as smoothly as they would like it to. Emeril made it part of the act, joking about the startling color. "I said to him, 'Emeril, sixth graders can make these!' He laughed."

"It's going to be a funny episode," Ms. Kropp says. And it will be fun for the kids to see themselves and their teacher on television. And tasty!
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