It\u2019s not quite the \u201cIron Chef,\u201d but for the kids in the ProStart Invitational cooking contest, things still can get pretty heated.<\/p>\n
And if there\u2019s any doubt whether the members of Kent Meridian\u2019s Royal Cater Club can handle it, just check the kitchen, where there may be a lot of heat, but all four members stand and take it.<\/p>\n
Advised by Career and Culinary Arts teacher Bree Devlin and led by senior Danille Jones, the team this week was putting the finishing touches on its meal in time for the March 8 competition in Olympia.<\/p>\n
The competition, sponsored by Boyd Coffee and now in its ninth year, challenges teams of high-school culinary students to put together a three-course meal in one hour using only two portable burners and whatever food they can keep fresh on the way to Olympia.<\/p>\n
This year, the KM team is making a blackened salmon with scalloped potatoes and asparagus spears, with a couscous salad appetizer and a trio of desserts, from chocolate mousse to pineapple custard to handmade vanilla ice cream with a raspberry-tapioca sauce.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe decided on our menu through trial and error,\u201d said Jones, the team\u2019s de facto leader and four-time competition veteran. He handles the brunt of actually cooking much the meal.<\/p>\n
For example, Jones said, they tried making a dessert with apples, but had to switch.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to break down apples without an oven,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Jones, who in the fall is headed to Johnson and Wales University in Denver to study culinary arts, said for her, the most difficult part is the timing, but added that having a team of all juniors and seniors makes things a little easier.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything on the entree has to have a burner, so the time restraints have been the most difficult part,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Handling the desserts for the team, which raises money for the competition through catering, is Rachael Alexander, a junior who plans to pursue a career as a pastry chef.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve just always loved cooking as long as I can remember,\u201d she said as she whipped together the mousse in preparation. \u201cAnd every girl loves some good chocolate.\u201d<\/p>\n
This will be Alexander\u2019s first year in competition and she is excited to get going.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good practice for my future,\u201d she said with a smile.<\/p>\n
While the women handle much of the cooking, most of the prep falls to seniors Nick Hall and Jon Xayasy, both of whom said they were convinced by Alexander to join the team.<\/p>\n
Xayasy said he has always cooked at home, and enjoys doing the chopping and prep for the couscous salad.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty relaxing, you know?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hall, meanwhile, is the team\u2019s engine, constantly in motion from the time they start. His mother is a chef and he said he has always had \u201cfondness for culinary.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the first 20 minutes, Hall is set to whipping cream for the mousse, which has to be done by hand. After that, he moves on to shaking the team\u2019s \u201chamster ball\u201d to make coffee-can ice cream for the desserts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can do anything they can do,\u201d he said, nodding toward the burners and the students manning them, \u201cbut my main skill here today is manual labor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hall also calls out the time for the team, keeping everyone on track.<\/p>\n
As a team, Devlin said the kids are \u201cvery unique\u201d but work well together.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing together they work well and know what needs to be done,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Sure enough, by hour\u2019s end, all three courses are plated and look, well, good enough to eat.<\/p>\n
The team, which meets every Monday, also will have to compete in a knife-skills competition as well as answer judges\u2019 questions.<\/p>\n
But despite the complicated cooking skills they are learning, Devlin said the competition will come down to timing and making sure their foods do not freeze on the way to the competition (since they must be packed in ice chests on the way to Olympia), though she is confident when the time comes her team will be ready.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re coming through and we\u2019re excited this Sunday is coming,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s not quite the \u201cIron Chef,\u201d but for the kids in the ProStart Invitational cooking contest, things still can get pretty heated. And if there\u2019s any doubt whether the members of Kent Meridian\u2019s Royal Cater Club can handle it, just check the kitchen, where there may be a lot of heat, but all four members […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":223,"featured_media":9204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-9203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9203"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/223"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9203"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}