Pressure Cooker

About the Film

Pressure Cooker profiles the lives of three high school seniors from Northeast Philadelphia, each with unique hardships but with the shared goal of winning scholarships to the country's best culinary schools. Their unlikely hero is the irreverent culinary arts teacher, Mrs. Stephenson, whose teaching style is hilariously blunt. Mrs. Stephenson is both a surrogate mother and a culinary boot-camp instructor, as she pushes her kids to achieve beyond what anyone else expects from them.

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About C-CAP

The film Pressure Cooker was inspired by the extraordinary work of the Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP), founded in 1990 by Richard Grausman.

C-CAP works with public schools across the country to prepare underserved high school students for college and career opportunities in the restaurant and hospitality industry. A national nonprofit, C-CAP manages the largest independent high school culinary scholarship program in the United States. Since 1990, C-CAP has awarded students $25 million in scholarships and donated $2.2 million worth of supplies and equipment to classrooms.

C-CAP provides training and curriculum enrichment programs including: teacher training, cooking competitions and scholarships, job shadows, job training, internships, career advising, college advising and College 101, and product donations.

In the 2006-07 academic year, C-CAP served 266 high school teachers in 204 public schools. 12,050 students benefited from enhanced education and employment opportunities. C-CAP donated $278,960 worth of supplies and equipment to the participating schools, offered college and career advising to 1,450 students, and awarded a record-breaking $3.65 million in scholarships.

C-CAP operates in seven locations: New York; Los Angeles; Chicago; Philadelphia; Hampton Roads, VA; Washington, D.C.; and statewide in Arizona.