Posted by Columbia Daily Tribune, MO on June 21, 2008 at 08:49:12:
Chefs to taste national competition
Student cooks heading to KC.
By JANESE HEAVIN of the Tribune’s staff
Published Friday, June 20, 2008
Two Columbia high school graduates will compete next week in a national culinary contest.
Doug Chrisman of Rock Bridge won first in a culinary arts category at the state-level Skills USA Contest held in Columbia in April. Claire Friedrichsen of Hickman took first in the commercial baking competition. The students, each of whom took culinary courses at the Columbia Area Career Center this past school year, will put their cooking skills up against competitors from across the country at the Skills USA National Contest in Kansas City.
The skills competition is a kitchen-based marathon: Contenders have to show they know how to convert measurements, demonstrate knife cuts and be able to tell the difference between dozens of spices and powders. For the culinary category, Chrisman also has to whip up a meal including salad with dressing, split pea soup, sautéed chicken breast with tarragon cream sauce, rice pilaf, glazed carrots and chicken stew. Of course, the dishes must come out in their proper order and be of restaurant-quality presentation.
"There’s a lot of time management you have to put into it," said Brook Harlan, culinary arts teacher at the career center. "Everything has to be in its place."
It’s good experience, Harlan said, for wannabe chefs.
Chrisman has been practicing the menu daily, tweaking recipes and altering preparation times to make sure everything comes out at just the right time. He is a little nervous about the national contest, but he also knows once he is in the kitchen, he’ll find his groove.
"I love to cook," said Chrisman, who plans to attend the Culinary Institute of America in New York this fall. "It’s what I want to do."
Friedrichsen isn’t as confident, but she is satisfied to have made it to the national competition. She wasn’t sure she would make it after her scones turned out "hard as a rock" at the state contest. Then again, Friedrichsen said, her pastry creams won the judges over.
At the national commercial baking contest, Friedrichsen will have to make some type of biscuit, demonstrate cake decorating and whip up a batch of cookies to show she knows different methods and techniques, said Carri Risner, who teaches the baking and pastry class at the career center.
Friedrichsen also is a bit of a food critic. She said she is looking forward to eating out when the group heads to Kansas City next week. "We’ll eat out a lot," she said. "And we can tell when" restaurants "make their own breads and when they buy them already made."
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Reach Janese Heavin at (573) 815-1705 or jheavin@tribmail.com.