I wish I could go back to high school. I never thought those words would pass my lips. Even more bizarre — I want to take home ec classes.

I avoided home ec like the plague in high school. Sewing didn’t interest me, and my mom told tales about the gruesome foods she’d made in home ec. Mom still halflaughs, half-shudders about the prune whip. My high school’s home ec classes reputedly weren’t any better.

Then I met Sara Riley. Of course, it’s not called home ec these days. Now it’s “Family and Consumer Sciences,” though an updated title doesn’t necessarily change content.

But I’d heard Riley was innovative, teaching awareness of good food from both health and culinary standpoints at Normal Community West High School. That’s why I’d come to observe her and her classes. Both exceeded my expectations — and were so exciting that I smiled all the way back home. As I walked in, a class was winding up. Riley was talking about the benefits of fermented foods such as yogurt and yeasts (no alcohol) and probiotics. Slender — almost wiry — with close-cropped hair and bursting with energy, Riley doesn’t look much older than her students, especially dressed as she was in clogs, jeans and a t-shirt. But there was no doubt that she was in charge.

Riley not only doesn’t look like a typical home ec/FCS teacher, her education and career path leading to teaching high school food classes are equally untraditional. She entered the CIA (the Culinary Institute of America) immediately after high school. That itself is unusual; the CIA requires incoming students to have a minimum six months of restaurant experience. But since Riley had been working at Detroit’s Ritz-Carlton during high school, she qualified. “It was pretty intimidating,” she says. “I was younger than everybody else, and less skilled.” Riley made it through the notoriously demanding two-year curriculum, though, earning her associate degree there before finishing with a B.S. in Hospitality Management in Miami.

Having worked in many aspects of the restaurant business, from kitchen, catering, front of house and hotel food service, Riley eventually landed at Chicago’s Four Seasons hotel as a junior food manager. “I was on the fast track, moving up the ladder,” she says. “But the hours were exhausting, and I’d always had it in the back of my mind to teach in some way.” Riley enrolled at Illinois State University for her teaching certification. For the last three years she’s brought her fresh and unique approach to teaching high schoolers how to cook. They’re learning how to prepare good, real food. Prepackaged, processed foods aren’t found in Riley’s kitchen. Students slice and sauté fresh mushrooms, roast whole heads of garlic and strip fresh thyme leaves from their stems and mince them to make Roasted Garlic Mushroom Crostini. Olive oil is used for those as well as for the Caramelized Onion Marmalade Crostini. Technique is emphasized: knowing what’s meant by sautéing, braising, stir-frying and roasting, and how they’re done. Riley emphasizes knife skills in all her classes, one of the most crucial skills for professionals.

Riley’s first-level class is Culinary Arts, which centers on the basics — especially including those knife techniques. It’s a prerequisite for Food For Thought, where students get more sophisticated in their cooking and other food knowledge. A third class is Lifestyle Management, held in conjunction with a P.E. component. Even there, Riley works to boost students’ skills and critical thinking levels as