It’s a case of out of the frying pan an into the fire for budding cooks at Oak Harbor High School.
After winning a cookoff at the state competition, the culinary arts team has less than a month to raise approximately $6,000 to pay for their first-ever trip to the national competition scheduled April 20-22 in Charlotte, N.C.
The five-person team competed in a cooking competition sponsored by the Washington Restaurant Association. The team prepared a three course meal that had to be better than the efforts of 27 other teams that prepared food for the annual competition.
The Oak Harbor team produced a three-course meal consisting of a warm goat cheese baby curly endive salad and honey pear compote, grilled mahi mahi, Dungeness crab cake with a mango salsa and a chocolate pistachio mousse with strawberry gelatin.
“It was so much fun, I’ve never had so much fun before,” said junior Chrissy Shuart Tuesday morning while cooking sweet potato fries.
During the cookoff, she said the competitors were fairly relaxed while they were preparing food.
“I thought is would be a lot more tense than it was,” Shuart, who is graduating high school in June, said. She is planning to attend South Seattle Community College before transferring to Washington State University where she will major in hospitality.
During the competition, she helped with cooking the dessert and entree.
Shuart’s comments were echoed by teammate Peter McWilliams.
“I think I was less nervous than I thought I would be,” McWilliams, a senior, said, adding that waiting for the awards was more nerve-wracking than the competition itself.
He is planning to continue his culinary career by attending a technical school in Bellingham this fall.
Winning the cooking competition wasn’t the only accolade the culinary students earned during the event.
Senior Melissa Rust received the WRA ProStart Student of the Year Award, which comes with a $1,000 scholarship from the Washington State Beef Commission.
The Oak Harbor team was selected during an in-class competition last February, where they had to cook using pork. In addition to McWilliams, Rust and Shuart, Lindsey Bear and Christina Kissinger are members of the team.
In the weeks leading up to the competition, they prepared their meal two times a week and held a dinner where they served it to 40 people.
In the competition last weekend, the culinary arts team earned second overall in the competition that also included a restaurant management portion and a knowledge bowl which includes a Jeopardy-style question and answer portion.
Moses Lake High School took the all-around competition. However, it’s placing first in the cooking competition that determines who goes on to nationals.
Oak Harbor won the all-around competition last year but missed nationals by not winning the cooking competition.
Now they have to figure out a way to raise the money needed to pay for the three-day competition.
“We don’t have a lot of time to raise the funds to do this,” teacher Louise Reuble said. They were busy this week planning ways to raise money. The first fund-raiser kicked off this week during parent teacher conferences. The culinary arts students were planning to sell cinnamon rolls to people coming to school to meet with teachers.
Supporters can make donations though the Oak Harbor Educational Foundation. Those donations can be sent to the Oak Harbor Educational Foundation, P.O. Box 1801, Oak Harbor, WA, 98277.
The culinary arts team is holding a dinner on Sunday, April 15 at the Wildcat Bistro beginning at 6 p.m. There are 40 available seats and tickets cost $50. For more information, call Louise Reuble at 279-5487 after April 9. There will also be a chance to buy one of 200 raffle tickets for a dinner for four to Fraser’s in Oak Harbor. Those tickets cost $10 per ticket.
