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Sperry Elementary Students Participate in Cooking Challenge
On Thursday, March 8, the five finalists in Sperry Elementary School’s Future Chefs National Challenge met at the main cafeteria to have a final showdown. Each of the finalists brought their winning recipe and worked with a Sperry Child Nutrition staff member to chop, dice, mix, and cook up delightful dishes. The theme for the dishes in the National Challenge this year was “Favorite Healthy Asian Inspired Recipes.”
Each dish was made from a recipe submitted to a panel of professional chefs for review, and the top five advanced to be finalists. The finalist came together on Thursday, put on cooking aprons and an official chef’s hats, and put together five dishes from their own recipes. Three judges, including one professional chef, viewed and tasted each dish, and asked each finalist questions about their creations.
First grade student Logan Xu served up his “Bazooka Sushi,” 2nd grade student Alanna Hembree whipped up her “Thai Chicken Roll Up,” 3rd grade student Jaycee Bridgeman dished up her “Asian Chicken Brown Rice Lettuce Wraps,” 4th grade student Ragan McCutchen chopped up her “Cucumber Sushi,” and 4th grade student Anna Coffey cooked up her “Egg Roll in a Bowl.” Each of these finalists worked with a Sperry Child Nutrition staff member
The dishes were awarded points for each of six categories: Healthy Attributes, Kid Appeal, Ease of Preparation, Originality, Plate Presentation, and Taste. Both the ingredients and the preparation of them had to be nutritious. The dish had to look interesting to kids so they would want to eat it. Preparing the dish had to be designed to be simple enough that other kids could, and would, try it themselves. Each dish had to show qualities of the chef’s creativity without being too outlandish. The dish itself had to be arranged on a dish in a display appealing to the eye. Of course none of the other criteria mattered if the dish did not taste good, so the final test for each dish was the taste.
“They all were well set out on the plate and each one tasted so good that it was a tough call on this,” Susan Weatherman, one of the judges for the competition, said. Each of the three judges sampled the dishes, awarding a set number of points for each category for each dish, The main judge for the event, Chef and Sodexo representative Remmi Smith, provided her professional expertise in the evaluation of the creations. After each dish had been tasted and evaluated, each judge submitted their ratings to be tallied.
Since each of the contestants was already a finalist, awards went to each. Bronze awards went to Logan Xu, AlannaHembree, and RaganMcCutchen; the silver award went to Jaycee Bridgeman; and the winner of gold was Anna Coffey. Each of the finalists also received a T-Shirt that identifies them as Future Chefs finalists, cooking utensils, and other goodies in a tote bag. Ms. Coffey also received a new bicycle, a camera, a fitbit, a set of pots and pans, and several cooking utensils. She will also advance to the regional competition later this spring.
“Encouraging these young people to make healthy food choices is an important part of helping them become happy, healthy, successful members of our community later,” Superintendent Dr. Brian Beagles said. “The Future Chefs National Challenge encourages individual creativity coupled with healthy, tasty dishes. I’m glad student interest in cooking healthy meals is shared by both boys and girls and students at all grade levels.”
The Future Chefs National Challenge is organized by Sodexo and involves schools throughout the United States, and Sperry is just one of several Oklahoma schools which participate in the Challenge. Sodexo is the national food service provider that supplies schools throughout the United States, and the Challenge is just one way students at Sperry and other participating districts are encouraged to choose healthy meals at school and home. The competition was open to all Sperry elementary students, Pre-K through 5th grade.
