Aspiring Lee High chefs compete at Albany Tech

ALBANY, Ga. — Five teams of dually enrolled Culinary Arts students from Lee County High School faced off in Albany Technical College’s Culinary Arts lab in the Logistics Education Center on Friday for an Epicurean showdown.

Each three-person team’s challenge was to take a mystery basket of ingredients and turn them into a dish that was judged based on creativity, teamwork, presentation and taste with minimal time to plan and execute.

The competition was divided into three rounds: Appetizer, Entree, and Dessert. In each round, the student chefs were given a basket containing between three and five ingredients, and the dish each team prepared were required to contain each of those ingredients.

Teams were provided access to a pantry and refrigerator stocked with a wide variety of ingredients and given 20 minutes to prepare their dishes.

The Appetizer round winner was the team of Yaunna Taylor, Drew Aultman and Austin Shlarb.

The Entree and Chopped Champions (overall points leader) was the team of Landrea Johnson, Keaton Hayes and Maria Jaime.

There was a tie for the Dessert winner between the teams of Haley Craft, Ty Matthews and Jaitlyn Jaser, and the team of Madison Noyes, Derian Lawson and Heather Hiers.

The student chefs cooked their dishes and completed five platings (one for each judge, plus one “beauty plate). After each round, the judges critiqued the dishes based on teamwork, presentation, taste, and creativity.

After each round, the “Head Chef/Team Leader” presented the dishes to the judges sharing with them what the dish is as the judges sampled it. The students remained until the judges complete the samples to get feedback and answer any questions.

Judges for the competition were Lee County School Superintendent, Larry Walters; Lee County High School Principal, Kevin Dowling; Miss Lee County High School 2013, Tiffani Walker, and Albany Technical College Board of Directors’ Chair, Virginia Parker.