Bonney Lake High School’s ProStart culinary team turned up the heat in the kitchen last Wednesday, closing out the academic year with competitive cooking finals.
The team that sliced, diced and grilled its way to first place was comprised of Taylor Friermuth, Katelyn Koens, Kyle Nadeau, Taylre Vaughn and Davion Williams. Their dish was Salmon en Croute with twice-baked potatoes and steamed broccoli. For dessert? Caramel coffee creme brulee.
It was the first year for the in-house contest, which pitted Panther chefs, whom had won semi-finals at the end of each semester, against each other.
“The idea started about a year ago,” ProStart coach Kahale Ahina said. “(District food broker) Tim Franson and I sat together and came up with the plan last year. He just wanted to get involved with education, and part of that was that he wanted to do a Top Chef-style competition.
Food service professionals were brought in as judges. Judges included Ryan Richardson of Trident Seafoods, Karen Brown of Sumner School District’s food services department, Bob Mauer of Bargreen-Ellingson, and Mike Hoye of the Vollrath kitchen equipment company.
The judges offered constructive critique of the kitchen techniques during competition.
“I saw a lot of people cutting vegetables over the garbage can,” Mauer said. “What if you dropped a vegetable? You would have to bring in a new one and that vegetable would be wasted.
“As far as puff pastries go, a lot of you were moving an inch or so to cut pastry-to-pastry. The corner should be the border. Everyone could have gotten one-to-two more pastries.”
As they waited for the results, a few students reflected on their menu choice for the competition.
“I think we made it a little too simple,” Senior Jayson Jones said. “We could have gone a little further. Originally, we wanted to put stuff in our rice, but we decided to go plain.”
“It was a lot of work,” Junior Jake Schmidt said of the competition. “But I think we pulled it off.”
The winning team received Vollrath cooking equipment as a prize, including a sautee pan, mugs and hats. Everyone received complementary paring knives.
