"Just the time with me and my mom doing it," she says. "The family effort of hand-cooking your tortillas, hand-making your own tortilla chips. Just the time you spend making it."

She and her mom make everything from scratch — the rice, the meat, the salsa, the cheese. A big meal, built together. It doesn't taste like any other tacos. It tastes like home.

That's what the Foods program at Salem Community High School is really about. Not just recipes. Not just techniques. Something deeper — the understanding that preparing food for the people you love is one of the most human things you can do.

Lillie Risley is in her fourth year of teaching here. She came from Robinson, Illinois, and she didn't plan to be a teacher — despite coming from a long line of them. But somewhere in college, at Eastern Illinois University, she realized this was where she belonged. She earned her degree in career and technical education with an emphasis in Family and Consumer Sciences, and now she teaches Foods 1, 2, 3, and 5.

Her philosophy is practical: when these students graduate and go out into the world, they're going to need to fend for themselves. "Not just go through the drive-through somewhere," she says. They need to know their way around a kitchen — even if it's something simple.

So she teaches them to cook from scratch. She shows them how cost-effective it can be. "You can make a very nice meal with, like, pennies in your pocket." In a world full of convenience foods and delivery apps, that knowledge is quietly revolutionary.

Her classroom draws a wide cross-section of Salem's student body. "I get the scholars of the school," Lillie says, "and the kids that kind of fall in the cracks." They all end up here, side by side, sharing counter space and oven racks. She intentionally mixes the groups — putting students together who might never share a lunch table. It builds community in a way that's subtle but real.

On this particular day, the room smells like peanut butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies. Seniors are moving with quiet purpose, checking timers, dividing tasks, and cleaning as they go. It feels less like a classroom and more like a family kitchen.

Amerie is one of those seniors. She took Foods because she wanted independence — real independence, the kind that doesn't rely on box meals. "Being able to cook for a family get-together, for myself, or if I have kids," she says. "Just be more independent." But her tacos tell a fuller story. Independence and connection aren't opposites. You learn to cook so you can take care of yourself — and so you can take care of others.

Gavin Buchanan came to the class out of curiosity. He wanted to know how to build a meal from scratch, how to create something that feels like home. Cooking won't be his career — he's heading to Kaskaskia College next year to study theater. Right now, he's playing the lead in a school production called The Other Room: Austin, an autistic boy who meets a girl named Lily, and they talk about astronomy. It's a challenging role, and he's proud of it. But no matter where theater takes him, he knows he'll always cook. "I want to be able to make food on my own," he says, "and not rely on pre-made meals."

Mati Maxey got here by accident. Her twin sister roped her in — "You should join, we could take Foods 5 together" — and now they share this class, working side by side in the back of the room. Mati loves experimenting with flavors, using ingredients you wouldn't typically think of. What started as a favor to her sister became something she genuinely loves.

Some students take Foods because it sounds fun. Some because they like to eat. But the ones who stay — the ones who follow the sequence all the way to Foods 5 — do so because they recognize the deeper value. They're learning something with no expiration date.

Beyond the classroom, the program has occasionally extended outward — meals for first responders, cookies and popcorn garlands for the historical society. Small acts of service that remind students that food can be a gift as much as nourishment.

But the real heart of it is simpler than that. It's Amerie and her mom, hand-pressing tortillas. It's a warm cookie shared with the person beside you. It's the quiet truth that runs through every lesson in this room:

Food is love.