Three Paul Kane chefs cooked up a silver-medal performance this month despite fire, theft and a family emergency.
The Paul Kane culinary arts team took second place at the third-annual Edmonton High School Culinary Challenge last month. The event, organized by the Canadian Culinary Federation and held at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT), pit students Travis Poseluzny, Nic MacDonald and Adam Hayman against 12 other Edmonton area squads in a battle of beef, soup and mousse.
The contest took place Feb. 6 with winners announced March 3. Teams had three hours to complete three dishes — beef rouladen, corn chowder and chocolate mousse.
This is the first time the team has finished on the podium at this event, says culinary arts instructor Randy Kozak, and they trained for months to get there. "I often stay after school with them till 8 or 9 [p.m.] so they can practice." It was an excellent performance, he says, especially since they had never worked together before.
Poseluzny, 16, wasn't even on the team until a week before the contest. "I only had three days to practise," he says.
But their dishes turned out just as planned, he says. "We just stayed calm and didn't panic. We had faith that we'd get it done."
Pros in the making
Poseluzny, MacDonald, and Hayman were busy Thursday training for their next competition. On the menu: chicken supreme with mushroom duxelles, éclairs and risotto. They swarm about their school's industrial kitchen, slinging syrup and chopping carrots with dizzying speed.
Poseluzny erects a teepee-like garnish out of carrot sticks on the risotto, a sort of thick creamy rice. Cooking is one of his favourite hobbies, he says, and he's been hooked on it ever since he got a job at Earl's last spring. "I like making things out of nothing."
Poseluzny joined the team after one of its original members dropped out due to a family emergency. It was his job to prepare the beef rouladen, which is like a cabbage roll with meat on the outside.
"I was really nervous," he says, as it was his first competition. "There were a lot of judges looking at you making every move."
Hayman, 16, is nearby squeezing whipped cream onto an éclair. It was organized chaos at the event, he says. He was pretty relaxed through it, he says, since this was his third competition. He whipped up a chocolate mousse with sugar spirals, strawberries and marmalade sauce in a teardrop-shaped chocolate bowl. The key, he says, was to keep it simple — a skill he picked up at St. Albert's River House Grill.
MacDonald, 18, eases a bag of diced mushroom into a chicken breast. He says he's been working in restaurants since he was 14 and hopes to start one of his own some day. "I love food," he says, and he's good at multitasking.
It was nerve-wracking to have camera crews shadowing his every move at the event, he says, but he and the others kept their cool. "We were there to have fun."
Courage under fire
The team ran into its share of trouble all the same. One of their scales was stolen and they nearly ran out of time to grab their ingredients. "Me and Adam were running alongside the cart grabbing stuff off of it," MacDonald says.
MacDonald accidentally added to the drama when one of his side-cloths caught fire. It had been on the side of the grill, he says, and he'd turned around to prep some food on the sideboard. Fortunately he extinguished it before the judges noticed.
All three chefs say they plan to apply for NAIT's culinary arts program when they graduate. Like the other contestants, they can now apply for a $3,000 scholarship at the school that includes training at real restaurants.
It was a learning experience, Hayman says. "One year ago I had no restaurant experience; I was just a kid who watched the Food Network at home," he says. "I feel I can do more now."
