by Aly Copp |

Some people just love food. Not necessarily just eating it, but cooking and preparing it, too. For these people, a certain joy comes out of taking few ingredients that do not seem like much, and turning it into something for people to enjoy. Some people even consider it as a career.

This year, a new opportunity became available to the Culinary Arts students. A team of five students have been given a chance to bring home a win from the Prostart Culinary Competition.

“The Prostart Culinary Competition has two sections to it. You can choose to either do a culinary portion or a management portion,” Culinary Arts teacher Emily Bryant said. “All of it is through the National Restaurant Association and the Prostart curriculum which is for the Culinary 1 and Culinary 2 classes. The students in those classes are eligible to try out for the team.”

There are five slots open on the LHS culinary team; team captain, entrée chef, appetizer chef, pastry chef and an alternate. In order to become a part of the team, students had to go through an elaborate process. First, they had to write a letter describing their strengths and weaknesses as a chef. Then, they had to prepare a meal in one hour and have it judged by Bryant and others.

“I am the team captain,” senior Melanie Kieffer said. “I kind of supervise everything, make sure everyone is on task, doing what they need to do, and I’m in charge of a lot of the planning and making sure we’re all organized on our steps.”

The competition gives students a 10×10 space in which to work, along with two tables. The team is also given two heating sources to help prepare their food. The downside is, they are not given any running water or electricity. Everything they cook has to be made from scratch and done with their own hands, and no pre-packaged foods are allowed. When the team comes in, they have a 15 minute time limit to set up their station.

“After the team sets up their station, they will do a chicken fabrication where they cut the chicken into an eight piece fryer,” Bryant said. “They will then do a knife skill portion where the judges rate the students on their knife skills.”

When the team gets done with those three things, they have exactly one hour to prepare an appetizer, entrée and a desert. The hard part is that the entrée has to include a protein, starch and a vegetable.

“I am in charge of the entrée, which is the main dish of the competition,” senior Riccardo Dainese said. “We are deciding right now what it is going to be. We are looking for cuts of meats and two sides.”

Right now the team meets twice a week from 3:00 to 8:00 after school. They even have an executive chef mentor; Chef Phil Herrera. If the team wins state, they will receive a donation to help improve the kitchen equipment in our high school. If the team proceeds to nationals in Washington DC, they are competing for full ride scholarships.

“I think once we get our recipes and all of the details finished, we’re just going to rock it out,” senior Bryan Gosa said.