It’s hot in the kitchen. Hot and crowded. Fourteen seniors from Chicago-area high schools are lined up between two rows of ovens and stainless steel counters.
They’re wearing white coats and cylindrical paper hats and measuring sugar, milk and flour into small Styrofoam bowls. They’re collecting eggs and knives and pots and putting them within reach. Some are washing chickens. Some are washing their hands.
Buzzing all around them are prominent local chefs, school board officials and reporters. A thin man with gray hair stands amid it all and yells:
“Who knows where the vanilla is? Who has the vanilla?”
The students are competing for more than $125,000 of culinary school scholarships, and several internships and apprenticeships. They’ve made it to the final round of the first Chicago competition of Careers Through the Culinary Arts, a program trying to revitalize high school home economics as a means for actually getting a job.
The finalists come from a pool of 1,000 students from 20 Chicago-area schools. They now are in one of the well-equipped kitchen classrooms at Kendall College, surrounded by pros who are here to judge them.
The guy yelling about vanilla is Richard Grausman, the brains behind it all. He’s a cookbook author, a teacher of French cuisine and a former representative of Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. Recently he has been putting together food preparation programs in American city schools, programs like this one.
But now he’s looking for the vanilla extract.
“Right here,” a student says, after turning around and picking up the bottle from the stove. He continues his preparation as Grausman gives the bottle to another student, who measures a half-teaspoon into a bowl. The students are gathering their ingredients before the clock starts ticking. They can measure out what the need, but they can’t start cutting, mixing or cooking yet.
They get two hours to prepare a meal, start to finish: Poached chicken and vegetables in a butter chive sauce, and dessert crepes filled with cream and topped with chocolate sauce. They’ve all done it before, in class. But this time they have to know the recipe from memory.
The competition isn’t a race. It doesn’t matter who produces a plate of chicken first; the judges want to see how well the students work in the kitchen. And what the outcome tastes like.
“It’s a little nerve-racking,” says Marcus Turner from Gage Park High School. Under his chef’s jacket he’s wearing a tie and slacks. He finishes prepping early and is asked to help out some of the others.
A few minutes later Grausman starts the clock. “Good luck and have fun!” he yells. Most students start slicing carrots. Some mix their crepe batter. The students are quiet, lost in concentration and surrounded by the heat of summer, stoves and bodies. They sweat.
Most of the chatter comes from the 11 volunteer judges. They wander around the kitchen, asking questions, making suggestions, poking, prodding or doing whatever they need to do to find out who’s got talent, who’s a natural.
Richard Chaney, a chef from Motorola Corp.’s food division, is more hands-on than the rest. He gets behind the counters with the students, badgering them with questions on their technique, offering advice and seeing how they take it. He’s grilling Annette Escamilla from Simpson Alternative High School. Lightly. She’s mixing a batter for crepes. “You got these yolks here,” he says. “They’re whole. Split them up.” His commands sound reasonable. With an egg beater, he pokes at two yolks floating in a milk-vanilla swirl.
“I always get all the liquids placed together first,” he says. “And add a little bit of flour at a time.” She had been mixing a little bit of flour, a little bit of milk, a little bit of flour, milk, flour, etc.
Across the room, another judge, Rick Bayless, chef and co-owner of Frontera Grill, Topolobampo and Zinfandel, positions himself as a careful observer.
“I’m looking for somebody who can move and not waste motions, aware of what’s going on around them,” he says. He points to one of the students, who is slicing a carrot. “This guy messed something up earlier, and I don’t know what that was all about. But he keeps his work area real clear. He’s got good knife skills. He’s not afraid of the knife.”
Bayless doesn’t care what the carrots look like after the student cuts them; that sort of technique can be taught. He’s looking for something more inherent, hard to describe. Something natural. So he just keeps watching.
“One hour,” yells Grausman, not breaking stride during one of his laps around the room.
One of the students keeps losing track of things. He leaves his work space in search of them, muttering: “Where’s the scale?” “Need another frying pan.” “Chocolate stuff.” One guy glances at a small slip of pencil-scrawled paper hidden in the fold of his apron.
Another student gets sick and has to leave. The heat’s too much, or maybe it’s because he didn’t eat breakfast, his teacher says. He leaves and throws up, and his teacher brings him a bowl full of mustard. “It’ll neutralize the acid in his stomach,” she explains.
The cooking continues. Only a few minutes left.
Completed dishes emerge from the kitchen and are lined up on a table outside. Each plate of chicken and vegetables has its own layout, each crepe has a different, elaborate splash of chocolate sauce. A photographer snaps pictures, for the record. The judges begin to scrutinize the taste, texture and appearance of the dishes. They will also meet with students for one-on-one interviews about their future, cooking philosophy and such. All this, plus grades and job experience, will determine who gets which scholarships.
Parents and teachers, who had been waiting in a room down the hall, crowd around the colorful, edible displays as the tasting and interviewing begins.
A judge tells a group of students that the school’s cafeteria doesn’t have enough food to feed them as promised, but they are welcome to what they just made if they want lunch. They have a few hours before all the interviews are over, and two days before they find out the results.
“All right!” one student says. He and others smile and start eating.
Skills win students local, national awards
The winners of the first Careers Through Culinary Arts Program competition in Chicago:
Anthony McPhee (Kelvyn Park High School): four-year scholarship at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I.
Keiron Branon (Crane High School): two-year scholarship to Kendall College.
Harmon Reece (Gage Park High School) and Marcus Turner (Gage Park): one-year scholarships to the National Center for Hospitality Studies at Sullivan College in Louisville, Ky.
Annette Escamilla (Simpson Alternative High School) and Jennifer Wright (Carver High School): seven-month certificates at Cooking & Hospitality Institute in Chicago.
Calvin Taylor (Washington High School): two-year full scholarship at The Swiss Hospitality Institute in Washington, Conn.
Markell Mooney (Kelvyn Park): two-year partial scholarship at The Swiss Hospitality Institute.
Spencer Ivy (Carver): two-year scholarship at Washburne Trade School in Chicago from the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union.
Shalanda Brown (Collins High School): 10-day, all expense-paid study at Le Cordon Bleu Cooking School in Paris, a $500 Careers Through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP) scholarship and a three-year apprenticeship through the American Culinary Federation based in St. Augustine, Fla.
Judge Link (Collins) and Earl Thomas (Calumet High School): $500 C-CAP scholarships.
Kenneth Hawkins (Crane): $500 C-CAP scholarship and a three-year apprenticeship through the American Culinary Federation.
All the finalists have also been offered summer internships at places such as the Marriott Corp., Superior Coffee, Canteen Corp. and Lettuce Entertain You.
