Local News

Top Chef Competition to take place at Brewster High School

Jan 06, 2015

FCCLA students left to right: Angie Vazquez, Erandy Esquivel, Melisa Corrales, Erick Pamatz, Lourdes Martinez, Daniela Carrillo

Joy Wilson is the Family and Consumer Science Teacher at Brewster High school and teaches a Food production and services class. This year the students are having a “Top Chef” Competition. The competition involves students planning and preparing a nutritious plate of food in 35 minutes. The competition starts in the classroom on January 7. Two teams compete and the rest of the class is evaluating them according to a rubric and standards and teams will be eliminated until the top 2 teams will compete in the Evening on January 15, 2015 at 5:00.

The January 15 competition is open to the public and will be an interesting experience with the students preparing the plate of food in front of the audience. The final competition will be judged by 3 local chefs, including the Certified Executive Chef from Sun Mountain Lodge, Russell Bradshaw. Joy met Russell when he gave a tour of the “Sun Mountain dining experience” to Family and Consumer Science teachers in the area. During this visit Russell talked about the Apprenticeship program at Sun Mountain. This program is sanctioned by the American Culinary Federation and Washington Labor and Industries. The Apprenticeship is a three year commitment working under a Certified Executive Chef as well as other well educated and experienced chefs while taking collage credit classes online. As a corporate model students learn through hands on experience, class room lectures, demonstrations, and field trips in an “earn as you learn” environment. Upon completion of the program students receive nationally recognized credentials and the designation of C.C. “Certified Culinarian.”

Mrs. Wilson contacted Mr. Bradshaw and asked if he would advise her to get students ready to enter his apprenticeship program. He agreed to be an advisory chef for the school and the program, a partnership that will greatly benefit the students at Brewster. This Top Chef competition is the 1^st step in the process.

The Competition is sponsored by the Student Leadership Club, Family Career and Community Leaders of America. They will be selling concessions during the competition and hosting the event in the commons at the Brewster High School on January 15 at 5:00 p.m. The “Top Chef” Competition will be 2 teams of 2-3 students that competed against the rest of the class and was found to be the top in food planning, preparation and plating. The students are following the “Choosemyplate.com” model of nutrition with ¼ of the plate protein, ¼ of the plate starch and ½ of the plate non-starchy vegetables which could include ¼ fruit. They also are to have a serving of milk which can either be a drink or in the food. The students made a storyboard plan to get the timing down for the critical control points; that students check to make sure the food is safe, healthy, and nutritious. Plating is putting the food on the plate in an attractive manner so it enhances appetite and of course taste is going to be an important part of the final product.

Score sheets will be available for observers if they want to participate in the judging for fun, it will not affect the judge’s decision which will be final.