Awards Ceremony...

Next day , yeah we had to wait a full 24 hours to find out if  I had won Gold and the MONEY$$$$$.

they started with the professionals...Gold...Then Silver Then Bronze.

next were the Junior Competitors (that would be my Division)... Woot Woot...wait everyone was being called up for a Certificate of Participation where's the..Gold and Silver???

Then they called my name..Chris Andrade....BRONZE MEDAL...Woot Woot. Cool... not the gold medal or the money... just glad I left with a medal and not a certificate of participation .

everyone was wearing their Chef Coats ...where's mine you ask?.... Mrs. Piper dropped it off  after the competition to get my name embroidered on it.

C-CAP

back in October of 2010 Mrs. Piper entered Luis (a senior in my Culinary class at Valley Vista) and myself to compete , Luis for a Scholarship. and since i was a Junior  i could not compete for the scholarship i was able to compete for a spot ion the top 10 Juniors. the competition was in February 2011

what is  C-CAP  you ask.... C-CAP stands for Careers though Culinary Arts Program. it's a program that started many years ago by a man named Richard Grausman. the program works with high schools who have culinary arts programs , they help the students earn scholarships , ranging from $50Thou to $130thou  per student.

So you want to know what i had to do?.... as a Junior i get to participate in the preliminaries competition.All Seniors compete in preliminaries as well. This determines the top 10 Juniors (who get to go to the Banquet, and also serve all the Seniors at the final competition),  and the 35+ seniors that will compete for the scholarship

What did i have to cook... a French Omelet  (to Perfection) what is perfection you ask? nice golden yellow color, seasoned perfect, tri folded, not runny but moist when they cut into it,  and a salad  that consisted of Bell peppers, jicama cucumber and a vinaigrette dressing. easy you say , but it's not , you have to slice cucumber circles and place them in a ring mold and then season your dressing perfect, dice your veggies all the same size and then place all your diced veggies in the ring mold , remove the cucumber bowl that you have created and hope it doesn't break apart. 

So after months of practicing and my parents tired of tasting the salad , the day finally came to Cook for the judge's....




 here is my finish product.   

Omelet

i had not cooked the Omelet for my parents till the day before the preliminaries, ...hmmm...it was funny , my father wanted to barf, a french omelet is a little under cook ,  the egg continues cooking as you take it off the saute and fold it, and then as it goes to the customer it continues cooking so that when the customer received his Omelet , it is finally cooked , moist and well done as a French omelet should be

Salad

I was very confident by this point , when i walked out to place my plate under my number , i noticed there were a few salads that had were falling apart, i even turned to my mother and Mrs. Piper and gave them a thumbs up.

NOT GOOD, slices were to thick and not tight

this was Luis' Salad ...he was mad ...he practiced this day after day ...and the day  it counts ...The one thing you don't want to happen.... happens

This was #13 a senior , perfect

another disappointment ...what happened...did he not practice???


 i was in the first heat of the preliminaries, there were 3 more to go. we did not get the results after a week of the competition....

waiting for the call to go prep our area

Luis and I registering, the lady is explaining to us what time we start prepping our area



My Number 26



My prep Area

Luis preparing his area



all the competitors ...



Judges...they were all Chefs , one guy was a C-CAP alumni,



parents or Teachers were not allowed to go to the Kitchen Area during Competition



Mrs/ Piper ...getting all her Goodies for her Culinary Class

Omelets are out and getting judged for color

Judges cutting in to the omelets to taste  for seasoning and check to make sure it was cooked perfect





After the competition one of the judges , signed her cookbook  for all the students and teachers...Mr's piper getting her book. 

a little something about Mrs. Piper...she has a walk in Pantry, half of the pantry is a collection of cook books from top to bottom and wall to wall...next time i go to her house i will take a picture and post it for all to see, she literally has a cookbook library.

Luis getting his Cookbook

Results.... Gotta love Mrs. Piper...she called my mom and told her i made TOP  10...and that we were going to the Banquet, at the Banquet , they award 3 of the top 10 Juniors a trip to the CIA (Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park NY) Johnson and Whales, or to The Arts Institute of Phoenix. Mrs. Piper told me she knew i had made top 10, she did not doubt my cooking and my ability to impress the judges.

Heading home!!!

It's been a while....

WOW...i have been out of sync with my blog...so here i go, so much that i have done and need to share...

so after the ACF Competition i have done so much , i earned a Bronze Medal and i have to say , I am really proud, cooked my Lamb to PERFECTION and Judges loved it .


Day of AWARDS

Latanya , she was at Valley Vista a few years ago and was Mrs. Pipers top Pastry and Dessert Chef, she is going to school to be a party Chef and runs a small business out of her home, she makes awesome cakes.

 This is what she created at the ACF competition

ME Mrs. Piper and Latanya!!!

Competition Day ...

It's OVER...Finally all the stress I was going through.... it's finally over.

The night before (Friday) I still had a few things I needed to put together, more like Organization....Organize, Organize.... Organize...am I an Organized Person? ...somewhat...I did it Though...I do have to give my mother Credit , she put everything I needed in zip-loc bags and plastic containers, while i went to bed to get my rest (hey I was up since 5:00am)...Thanks MOM.

I couldn't take anything cut up or prepare anything at home. The only thing I could prepare at home was the chicken and beef  Stock. I  made the chicken stock out of a paste that my Mentor Chef Robert gave me to use, I also used an already prepared beef stock.

Saturday, woke up ready to cook. checked off my list to make sure my mom packaged everything I needed, saran wrapped my supplies, have to give thanks to my father Auggie for helping me, that plastic wrap was getting all tangled up on me. mom Ironed my chefs coat, apron and pants (oh yeah and she hemed'em for me), she was about to iron my hat..."what the freak mom, I'm not going to a fashion show"... stopped her just in time. gathered my Knife bag and we packed it all in the car ...Off we go to Mesa.

Arrived at the E.V.I.T campus in Mesa, AZ at 9:30am ...perfect timing...my start time is  10:30 am. I met with my Teacher Mrs. Piper, she helped me bring in all my equipment and food in and then I was introduced to  Chef Chris Brill from a Cooking School in San Diego, he gave me direction and told me what was expected of me before I can get to my station and cook . I had to place all of my equipment and food on sheet pans and in a sheet pan cart to push it all to my cooking station. more organization!!!!



all my stuff , ready to go inside and COOK!!!



one of the many Chefs from San Diego Culinary Institute Checking out my Presentation Folder

he told me it was very impressive and wished me luck. my Kitchen MOM...Mrs. Piper fixing my neckerchief.  

Prep Time !!!!

I had 15 minutes to prep my area, place everything that I will need on my surface area, fetch water for my Sanitation Bucket , place my Knives in the correct place and well...wait for the Chef to count me down to start cooking.

My Cooking Area

Chef Judge giving me the Count down

TIME TO COOK!!!!!!!

I  was given 1 hour to cook

cleaning the rack of lamb

I rubbed Kosher salt, Rosemary and Garlic that I finely chopped up and Olive oil to keep all the ingridients on it and to get a nice sear before placing it in the oven. 

Olive oil is my New Cooking oil,  you all should try it, gives flavor to everything that you cook.  

making the Risotto



pan to the left will be for the Lamb, middle pan Risotto, Beef stock in the pot



adding white wine to my Brussels sprouts

 the next few pictures were intense, I was going to go check the Rack of lamb, as I was ready to head back to the stove and finish my Risotto and start my mushroom tomato sauce .........

    

......The Chef Judge stops me and questions me about the temperature  I was looking for in the lamb....I tell him 145 and he says its too high maybe 126 , I checked it again  and it was at 120.... so I  pulled out the lamb and set it aside to rest... for those of you that are not cooks ....if you pull your meat out of the oven at a lower temperature than it should be, set your meat to the side and let it rest before cutting into it...it will continue to cook and locks in all the nice flavorful juices that the meat has created, this will keep your meat nice and moist and not dry out.

and i pulled it out of the oven!!!!!!



looks Over cooked!!!!!

Spectators...i am so glad that my mom and auggie were not all up in face the way the parents of the kid next to me ...his dad was all up in the kids face with the video camera , he must have had 20 people watching him, were i only had my Mom, Auggie, Grandma Lupe and Mrs. Piper. and the judging chefs and recruiters.



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Plating Time!!!!

I was given 10 Minutes to plate and hand my plate over to the runner

i placed my Dishes in the oven for about 2 min.

 the Judge to the right of this picture must have been making note of a big No, No...I was handleing teh plates with out Gloves...DARN IT!!!!...Thanks Father for the heads up!!

This is were I was reminded by  Auggie that I didn't have gloves on. In the Restaurant industry when plating a dish you must always wear gloves , this keeps your fingerprints and oils from getting on your dishes 

The Lamb looks PERFECT!!!!!!

cleaning my dish ...with Vinegar , takes off all food grease and finger prints.

My Final dish!!!



the competitors dishes

this dish was from the kid that was cooking next to me, he made a stuffed chicken breast and a lollipop chicken wing... felt sorry for him during judging ...wasn't good!

this ...well... I really don't know what to call it...I know she had rice in the middle and a wall of chicken, kind of looked like a volcano

Judging Time....actually,  Critique Time!!!

there were 3 judges , about 20 minutes after we finished our dish and Judges tasted our food they came out to critique our food and presentation.

They asked each of us  "what would you do different?" or "did you like your Plate"...my response was ..."I over cooked my Lamb" Judges all looked at me and Said "the Lamb was cooked Perfect, flavor was good"  WHAT??? i was freakin excited when they said that I couldn't believe this, and here I thought I  had over cooked it...WOW!!!!!!

They liked the flavor of my Brussels Sprouts and the Risotto. They did say that the texture of my risotto was not that great, it wasn't creamy enough and that I should never cook risotto in a 1 hour competition..."DONKEY"  all I could think Chef Ramsey would have yelled at me if he was there. then came the brutal part ...my Presentation....they said the portion size was too big, I should have never covered the Lamb with the sauce, it hide the  perfectly cooked  Lamb that had such great color and flavor. They didn't like the way I  placed the lamb, I should have placed some of my Brussels sprouts upwards showing some of the green. They also didn't like the plate I used , they told me Next Time (there will be a next time) to use a plain round Plate, said I  could do a lot more in presentation with a round plate. oh yea and one good thing ...to draw how i would like to plate, that it would give me a better idea on how i would want to present it ... over all, I  was pleased knowing that my Lamb was cooked perfect!!
(especially after they were served raw chicken)

I happened to be the last one they judged, waiting patiently.

 Explaining  to the judges bout my Lamb being over cooked...Turned out it was Perfect!!!!

here the Master Chef is telling me about my Risotto...DONKEY!!!!!!!

over all ...he liked the flavor .

just in case your wondering...Yes I was nervous..but once I set up my cooking area and started cooking all my nerves disappeared and all I could think was .... COOK,  "Keep your Area Clean" , Place your knives in the correct spot after using,  don't drop anything, clean your hands , "Keep your Area Clean" and .......Keep your Area Clean"

This has been a Great Experience...Thank you Mrs. Piper for Entering me in this Competition

send me your comments and  Questions