Local students headed to national culinary competition

Room C121 is divided into three conjoined areas: a kitchen, traditional classroom and a dining area with several wooden chairs and tables.

It’s designed to teach everything a student would need to learn to get into the culinary industry, including safety, sanitation, business planning and, of course, cooking.

When students, ranging from sophomores to seniors, filed into the Sahuarita High School classroom Friday, the room smelled overwhelmingly of sweet bread. That’s because it was cake day, said Esther Skinner, the school’s culinary teacher.

The classroom is a place of discipline, as required in any professional kitchen, Skinner said. “They understand what’s expected of them.”

But on this day, she might allow the students to take it a little easy, as some of them have just finished competing in the 2016 Southwest Gas Arizona ProStart Invitational in Flagstaff, a state-level qualifier tournament for a national competition.

ProStart is a two-year nationwide culinary program that reaches nearly 120,000 students, said Tracie Carmel, the ProStart coordinator at the Arizona Restaurant Association. It helps provide support and curriculum to participating schools to help their students come out of school industry-ready.

Sahuarita High School’s program piloted the restaurant management portion of the competition with students Justin Barnes, Carlos Gomez, Gabriella Noriega and Connie Rasmussen, who won first place.

The Sahuarita students’ presentation on a business plan for an appetizer-only restaurant impressed the judges, Carmel, of the Arizona Restaurant Association, said. Those students will head to Dallas in late April to represent Arizona and compete nationally.

With their success, Carmel said she hopes the restaurant management competition would be in full swing with more schools participating.

Sahuarita’s culinary team brought home a second-place trophy, bested only by Mountain View High School’s team.

That team, comprising Emilio Castro, Austin Hommel, Jazmin Ochoa and Gregory Strode, crafted a three-meal course that included Italian smoked salmon roll with Sriracha-mayo sauce, pork saltimbocca and butterscotch rum crumble with mint chocolate pecan ball.

“I’m sure the employers would be really impressed with our kids,” Skinner said.

A lot of preparation went into gearing up for the invitational, she said. Her wildly popular culinary classes, which are divided into three levels, have a total of 145 students, though more than 400 have signed up to get in.

Any student can join the competition-level teams, but they have to show the utmost commitment, including participating in after-school practices, she said.

The restaurant management team spent countless hours coming up with its winning business plan, the students said. They spoke to a number of restaurant managers, chefs and other professionals to develop the best plan.

The team’s proposed name for the restaurant is “The Sampler,” as it would only serve appetizers. The menu was developed with the team members’ favorite appetizer dishes, such as sliders, wings and flatbread.

“It’s our interpretation of appetizer and American cuisine,” said Noriega, 17.

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The theme of the proposed restaurant’s interior is “retro-modern, maplewood, stainless steel and navy blue,” said Barnes, 16. “We wanted it to be a comfortable setting.”

The students didn’t just randomly choose the color blue. They chose it because, according to a psychology website, that color represents trust, he said.

The biggest challenge was not the actual business plan, but rather getting in front of people and presenting it, the team said. To practice, the students presented to several classes and groups of parents and teachers.

Judges at the competition in Flagstaff asked hard-hitting questions about their marketing tactics. “At first, they completely tore us apart,” Rasmussen, 17, said of the judges. But that only served as motivation to make their plan better.

The Sahuarita High School restaurant management team’s strategy for the upcoming national competition is to bring an “Arizona feel” to the national stage, Barnes said.

With their great teamwork — Noriega said they just have to look at one another to know what the others are is thinking about — they hope to bring home the win.

While some other members were more timid about their chances of taking nationals, Gomez, a 17-year-old senior, was not. “I’m not trying to be cocky, but I think we’re going to win,” he said.

All four students said they have ambitions to continue studying restaurant management.

Rasmussen was accepted into Northern Arizona University’s hotel restaurant management program. Gomez is also considering NAU, though that would have to wait, since he’s already enlisted in the Navy. Noriega is considering the New England Culinary Institute, and Barnes wants to go to the Culinary Institute of America.

As for the culinary team members, they have their eyes on the prize for next year’s competition. Though they did not make nationals this year, competing was a huge learning experience, said Castro and Strode, who are both juniors.

“Our teacher helped us a lot,” Castro said. “She taught us how to do our cuts, showed us examples.”

“She’s the one who made our team,” Strode said.

Both students said they would carry on with their culinary studies and are considering going to the New England Culinary Institute.

For their work at the invitational, Sahuarita High School’s students earned scholarships to continue their education in culinary arts and restaurant management. The New England Culinary Institute, which many students said they were considering, is one of the schools offering the scholarships.

The culinary program at Sahuarita is designed to help prepare students for their careers in the restaurant industry, Skinner said. Students can obtain their national certification through the program, which would give them advantage in finding employment.

The ultimate goal of the culinary program is to give students a chance to “fall in love with the industry,” she said. The teacher wants to provide whatever she can to do that.

“Not everyone is made for college,” she said. “I just want to open doors for them.”