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Does your child like to cook?

 ProStart Competition Awards © DBunjon

Might your child be the next Top Chef? Is culinary proving to be a true passion for them?

If you answered yes to these questions, have you considered one of the many high schools in Maryland that offer the ProStart Culinary Program?

 

What is important, what means the most is the students learn actual working skills to support themselves, they learn whether this was a pie-in-the-sky dream field of endeavor or that they love the hard work and toil the kitchen hands out. They learn that there is little or no glamour in this job; it is hours on their feet, sweltering kitchens, and brutally long hours. Once the realization sets in they determine early on if culinary is their passion and deep routed in their souls. They learn skills sets that they can use throughout their lives not just food preparation: math ( how many teaspoons in a tablespoon and how many tablespoons in a ¼ cup-can you answer that question?), reading skills (being able to read a recipe correctly and translate that to a finished product), communication skills (you aren’t the only chef/cook in a restaurant kitchen - you are reliant on everyone in your kitchen working as a team and communicating), health and sanitation (there is no 5 second rule in a restaurant kitchen, you drop it on the floor you don’t use it).

 

 

My fellow food bloggers and I just wrote about the 3 course $10 dinner at NAF (National Academy Foundation High School)  prepared by and served by their ProStart high school students. The Baltimore Sun’s award-winning writer, Rob Kasper, spent the day with the students, behind the scenes, this is his story. I helped promote the dinner and it was a sell out, a huge success on many levels. I sat at a table with relatives of the students. Met a lovely lady whose son was in the program and her other son had graduated the same program and is now attending Baltimore International Culinary College. She says her husband likes to cook –it is amazing how children absorb the parents’ passion. The juniors and sophomores worked as servers (see the video snippet when they first came out). The menu and food was excellent and thanks in part to Chef Jerry Pellegrino of Corks Restaurant mentoring and overseeing food preparation for the evening. 

 

Our server, a lovely lass, was excellent and watched what and what we didn’t eat. My chicken breast was tasty but at the wing section was slightly undercooked. See was observant, offered a new plate and remained attentive to the tables needs. She really impressed me and I told her as much. 

 

 

Let me preface that I mentor a ProStart high school culinary team at Carver Center for Arts and Technology. Each high school has the opportunity to compete at a state level and if they win top honors, go to national competition.   The state competition was last week and the judges are both local and national food professionals. The high school teams have 1 hour to prepare a three course meal. The difficulty lies in that they have no electricity, no refrigeration and two butane burners. There is also a management competition about food, cooking and sanitation knowledge – a quiz bowl. 

 

If you could see the professionalism of these high school students, the work that goes into this – the Carver team has been practicing since October. I wish you could have seen the pride, the enthusiasm of the parents who sit in an audience watching the children work.

 

My team, the one that I mentored, in the last minute of their competition time plated the dessert – I almost had a heart attack. Carver Center took 2^nd place honors in culinary and 1^st place honors management and the chef instructor, Bette Mullins was awarded Maryland’s ProStart instructor of the year. I am a very proud mentor. Howard County ARL took 1^st place in culinary. Winning teams are awarded scholarship dollars. Watch a clip of competition video HERE

 

 

 

I want to direct you to the schools in Maryland with the ProStart Program, find one near you and do your due diligence and get your child enrolled.  Email me at examiner@diningdish.otherinbox.com for the list of ProStart Schools in Maryland.