Culinary competition heats up

Post date: Feb 09, 2015 2:31:56 AM

Santana Reimer, staff

ProStart, comprised of students interested in cooking and competing with other schools across the state, provides students an opportunity to demonstrate their culinary skills.

“Some of the students are considering pursuing a career in the culinary field,” Culinary Arts instructor Coleen Keffeler said. “Others are participating because they love to create and cook. It's an opportunity for students to demonstrate what they've learned and challenge themselves.”

This year’s culinary artists from SBHS -- seniors Abby Stevens and Jeffrey Noyes as well as juniors Felicia Todd and Chris Van Asma -- will be competing on March 16 and 17 at Mitchell Technical at the ProStart competition.

“We compete against teams from McIntosh, Lemmon, Mitchell CTE High School, Sioux Falls CTE Academy, Brookings, Huron, Mobridge, Northeast CTE High School and Madison,” Keffeler said.

The team practices whenever it fits everyone’s schedule, which means early mornings before school, after school, or on the weekends.

“Students learn and practice chicken fabrication (cutting the chicken into the required retail cuts), practice knife cuts, and prepare the recipes selected for the contest,” Keffeler said.

Students go into this career field because of all the benefits and opportunities being cooked up all the time.

“If they learn it's a career they want to pursue, they can compete for scholarships to help pay for their post-secondary education, they can talk about the experience on their resumes, and it's fun,” Keffeler said.

Keffeler enjoys working with her students because “I offer this opportunity because students are interested and it's good for them to experience the challenges and know that they are excelling in an area of interest,” she said.

In order to raise money to pay for their place in the competition, team members have completed fundraisers and have more planned.

“We did the Christmas Cookie Platters in December. We're catering the brunch for the Iota Chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma's April meeting,” Keffeler said, “and we'll be doing a May Day Basket for May Day.”

Early risers, the ProStart team has elected to meet Tuesdays through Friday from 6:30-8:00 a.m.

Former culinary arts contestants Mikkayla Johnson and Nick Reynolds, 2013 alumni, showed up on the initial practice to assist with the learning process.

“They felt it is a worthwhile process, want to see the team do well and they enjoy the interaction,” Keffeler said.

“We'll be running through the entire contest from start to finish by the end of the month,” she said.

Other culinary events throughout the year include the Chadron State College Eagle Cook-Off and the South Dakota SkillsUSA Culinary and Baking Competitions.