Iron Chef

By Leah Wieland and Greenlee Pulley

On November 3rd and 4th, Mrs. Schoedel's Family and Consumer Science classes participated in the annual Iron Chef competition. Mrs. Schoedel explained that this is a month-long project, where students had to plan, make a grocery list, and eventually compete in a 2-day food competition with judges. “The goal of Iron Chef is for the students to build confidence in themselves as cooks,” says Mrs. Schoedel, “I encourage them to step outside of the box with the food they choose to make and to try different techniques in each recipe.” 

Iron Chef is meant to be a fun way for students to learn daily life skills. Iron Chef A-day winner Kyra Rinkel states, “I think I learned to work with other people in the kitchen, since I am used to working alone. It was kind of stressful, but still fun.”

Each class had to incorporate a different secret ingredient into their dishes. They then had to present a main, side, and desert dish to the judges. The A-day secret ingredient was cottage cheese and the B-day ingredient was pineapple. The winners of this year's competition were Kyra Rinkle, Dakoda Rodgers, Sydney Dippel, (A-day) and Faith Johnson, Sierra Stahl, and Abbie Burgess (B-day). Sierra Stahl states, “I think it was really fun, we all got to work on separate things, but also help each other with different dishes. At times it was kind of a mess, but it was fun.”

Instead of the judges coming into the classroom this year  and judging in person the food was sent to them in different containers to judge and give feedback for the winners. The judges for the two days of the competition were: Mr. Thole, Mr. Kestner, Mrs. Bushman, Mrs. Jenkins, Mr. Coats, Mrs. Mercer, Mrs. Huber, Mrs. Huss, Mrs. Thole, and Mr.  Johnson. The dish that won the A-day competition, with a secret ingredient of cottage cheese, was cheesy pasta, cottage cheese salad, and cottage cheese pudding. The winning dish of the B-day group, with the secret ingredient being pineapple, was chicken and rice, fruit with pepper dip and cinnamon sugar chips, and a hummingbird cake.