Competition on menu for young chefs
FOUR HOURS SEEMS like a lot of time, but when you have to bake a loaf of bread, make six buns, prepare six fruit tarts, decorate a three-layer cake and pipe 16 shortbread cookies, that time goes by quickly. And to do all that while judges from the industry watch your every move increases the pressure even more. But students from Niagara Catholic District School Board high schools seemed to be keeping calm as the clock ticked down on the them in the baking area at the school board’s caking and culinary skills competition. “They know what needs to be done first,” said Lakeshore Catholic High School chef/instructor Joe Fabiano Monday morning as the competition got underway. “The bread takes the longest and then they’ll work their way down, doing what takes less work or less time to prepare.” Fabiano, co-chair of the baking competition, said students were there to learn and have fun. Fabiano said the five students — two Grade 12 and three Grade 9 — taking part in the baking competition were all from Lakeshore. He said the high school usually carries three or four bakers and three chefs throughout the school year.
The students were using the Niagara College Canadian Food and Wine Institute at the Niagara-on-the-Lake campus. Chef Nathan Libertini, a Notre Dame College School graduate; Richard Bieber, a chef with Niagara Parks Commission; and Lisa Giura, a Niagara College graduate and pastry chef at Brock University, were all on hand to judge the young chefs. “The students are based on various criteria,” said Fabiano. The students came from Lakeshore, Notre Dame, Saint Paul, Saint Michael, Blessed Trinity, Holy Cross, and Dennis Morris. Stan Pockaj, chef/instructor from Holy Cross in St. Catharines, was running the culinary skills competition, and said students there had three hours to work on a set menu. That menu, Pockaj, said, consisted of minestrone soup, a top sirloin steak, Bearnaise sauce, roasted root vegetables and mashed potatoes. “Then it’s a matter of a student’s creativity in presenting their plates in a way that little bit different than their competitors.” Students, he said, ranked at least a six or seven out of 10 when it came to their skill level. “It’s really good for the short amount of time they had to practise and try and execute the menu items. But on a day like today, when the competition is going, we’ll find that one that really shines,” said Pockaj. While the students were competing Monday, Pockaj said taking part in the specialist high skills major program was giving them life skills. He said students were encouraged to take home what they’ve learned so far and put it to use. Students who won in the two categories were to move on to the Skills Ontario competition to represent the Catholic school board.