What are the ingredients for victory? That’s a question Bonney Lake High’s culinary team is attempting to answer as it prepares for the Washington Restaurant Association’s Boyd Coffee ProStart Invitational Saturday.

The Panther chefs will square off against 21 schools as they gather at South Seattle Community College. The competition includes culinary and restaurant management categories, but Bonney Lake will only enter a culinary team this year. At stake is a share of $400,000 in scholarship money and a spot at the National ProStart Invitational in Overland Park, Kansas.

The invitationals are part of a two-year program offered at Bonney Lake and other select high schools nationwide. ProStart trains high school students in the standards and practices of the restaurant industry in order to have an educated incoming workforce.

“It’s a lot different (from preparing for a sport),” said Tracy Hare, a senior who plays on the golf team, as well as in other sports. “(Culinary preparation) is a lot more time consuming because everything has to be exact – exact cuts, exact measurements, exact adherence to the recipe – whereas sports are more lenient in how you perform.”

The five-member team cut boiled and sauteed as it practiced its ability to create two servings of a restaurant quality three-course meal, one for the tasting judges and one for presentation purposes.

The Panthers’ meal will consist of a salmon appetizer, Bonney Lake rabbit for the entree and apple Napoleon for dessert.

At competition, the restaurant association will only provide work tables and ice. Teams are expected to provide their own equipment and ingredients. Senior Kendal Bledsoe is providing the rabbit meat from stock raised at home. Many of the the other ingredients are also locally grown or obtained. Produce ingredients in the meal are grown from the high school’s greenhouse.

“The idea of the sustainable kitchen and sustainable ingredients in food preparation is one that has become very important in the restaurant world,” said Kahale Ahina, the coach for the culinary team and teacher for the Bonney Lake ProStart program. “Restaurants are looking at ways to reduce their environmental footprint in the kitchen and our menu reflects that.”

Judges at the competition will be looking for adherence to industry standards, things like proper and clean uniforms, proper cuts, mise en place (the practice of “everything in its place”), sanitary practices in all stages of preparation and excellence in plating and presentation of the meal.

Timing is as essential as quality, because the assumption is that there are customers waiting for culinary teams’ food. Teams will have 30 minutes to demonstrate knife skills, followed by a break and then 60 minutes to prepare two three-course meals.

“I think we have a very solid shot at winning this year,” Ahina said. “We have a complicated meal and we’ve brought a lot of complexity to the dessert. The level of difficulty is pretty high.”

The Bonney Lake High School ProStart team consists of Bledsoe, Hare, junior Courtney Hurst, and seniors Eric Sutton and Kyle Vandervlugt.