Newport students prep for national culinary competition

Five of Newport Harbor High School’s culinary students huddled around two tables. They portioned their cheese, herbs, fruit and other ingredients at one. Two butane burners sat on the other.

The students needed to practice cooking an entire three-course meal without an oven, blender or other electrical appliances. Their upcoming competition will disqualify them if these are used.

High schools from across the United States and several outside the country will compete in the National Restaurant Assn. Educational Foundation’s National Invitational on Saturday through Monday at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim.

Newport Harbor’s five-person team -- Mackenzie Hyde, Luke Bramm, Cheyenne Whitacre, Ike Ramos and Gavin Zavala -- will attend the tournament. They earned this spot after beating out over 20 other teams at the California Restaurant Assn. Education Foundation’s ProStart Cup in March at the Pasadena Convention Center.

The team’s members emerged from Newport Harbor’s Culinary Arts Academy, a program that focuses on hospitality and the art of cooking. The academy’s instructor, Sarah Wall-Pilon, has taught the students culinary techniques and strategy.

During the invitational, each culinary team will be provided only two 8-foot long tables and two butane burners. Although these limitations presented the students with a challenge, they did not shy away from including raw foods in their three-course meal.

They learned to gently heat the corn pancake for the appetizer. They added apple cider bacon, pickled red cabbage and greens to complete the first course.

Their entrée, which features a duck, posed some obstacles. The team worked around this by wrapping the duck in foil as it sat above the burner. They created a mix of flavors by including goat cheese, walnuts, cherries and herbs.

For the final part of the meal, they assembled a chocolate crémeux, a dense pudding. Crumbles of hazelnut and a ganache of infused blood orange with white chocolate accompanied the rich pudding.

For the invitational, the team will whip up two identical servings of this three-course meal in 60 minutes or less. One serving will be for the judges to eat while the other will be for display.

The students have been preparing their recipes since November. They drew their culinary inspiration from meals seen on Pinterest and Instagram.

“Our meals have turned out completely different than what we started off with,” Bramm said.

Bramm and his teammates devoted three days a week to practicing, where each cooking session lasted between five to seven hours. During spring break, they traveled to each other’s houses to run through their culinary techniques.

At the invitational, teams placing in first through fifth places will be awarded scholarships to institutions specializing in secondary culinary education. These scholarships add up to nearly $1 million dollars in value.

Some members of Newport Harbor’s team wish to become chefs in the future. But all share the common goal of learning to cook exceptional meals.

“This is our first time experiencing a competition like this,” Bramm said. “We’ve sacrificed our spring break and after-school time, but in the end this is something we all enjoy.”