For the third year in a row, a Colorado team took second place in the annual National Pro-Start Student Invitational, a program designed to nurture young men and women interested in the culinary arts.
Wheat Ridge High School seniors Jessica Miller and Artemio Ramirez, and juniors Chris Kirgan and Liz Williams were among more than 200 high school students from 28 states and Guam who converged on Disney’s Contemporary Resort in Orlando, Fla.
Marcella Hiebert, ProStart instructor at Wheat Ridge, looked on from the back of the cooking area as her charges broke into action, preparing the meal that had qualified them for one tough culinary competition: the fourth annual National ProStart Student Invitational, a kind of “Iron Chef” cook-off for teens.
“It was exhilarating to watch,” Hiebert says. “I just walked back and forth and chatted with whoever was nearby. I had so much confidence in them I just wanted them to relax and do their best. The parents were up front; they were the ones who needed to be up there.”
All menus were created, priced and prepared by students under the guidance of private Swiss chef Bruno Brusch. Each team created an appetizer, entree and dessert.
Wheat Ridge’s first course was a Colorado trout and artichoke salad drizzled with a chervil-laced Parmesan-lemon vinaigrette.
The entree, pepper-crusted pork tenderloin medallions, was served with a sauce incorporating Hungarian sweet paprika, rosemary, thyme, shallots and juniper berries. It was accompanied by carrots, asparagus, crimini mushrooms and Brussels sprouts.
Dessert was a chocolate-raspberry feuillete, wafer-thin bittersweet chocolate layers, each balanced on six raspberries and topped by a dollop of chocolate mousse, mint and gold leaf. The base was surrounded by chopped mango and strawberries pooled in raspberry sauce.
And although prep work was allowed, the students had all of 60 minutes to cook and plate each course.
“It really teaches teamwork and that you’re responsible for your buddy,” Hiebert says. “At one point, the trout wasn’t ready, so another team member moved in and helped him out. It was one of the first things the judges commented on when we went for our private evaluation the next day.”
The team might not have taken first place, but they’re still winners in the eyes of local sponsors.
“This is one of the best teams we’ve ever sent,” says Mary Mino, president of the Colorado Restaurant Association Education Fund. For three of the four years this invitational has existed, a Colorado school has placed second.
The winning menu, from Wisconsin’s Sheboygan North High School, featured a grilled vegetable torta with smoked salmon and a Black Forest Enchantment dessert.
The invitational is presented by the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation, which, in partnership with Coca-Cola, awarded $88,000 in college scholarships to the top three teams.
Ramirez plans to attend the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., in September. Miller plans to attend Johnson & Wales University’s Denver campus.
Staff writer Ellen Sweets can be reached at 303-820-1284 or esweets@denverpost.com.
