West Shore Culinary Students Shine In State Competition

West Shore culinary students demonstrated their excellent skills and talents against other culinary students in the State of Ohio FCCLA Competition held on April 22-24 in Columbus. Overall, four students earned Gold Medals and the three-person Culinary Team earned a Silver Medal. The Gold Medal winners were then ranked amongst themselves in their culinary category where West Shore students earned two second places and one third place across the entire state of Ohio.

Junior Culinary student Gabriel Antos placed second in the State in the Pastry Cake category while also earning a Gold Medal.  She baked and designed a Sicilian Cassata Cake.

Junior Culinary student Stephen Watkins received second place and a Gold Medal in Garde Manger. His Mexican inspired Hors d’oeuvre tray included grilled skirt steak in Adobo with chimichurri sauce, chunky mango guacamole in a homemade crunchy corn tortilla chip, and grilled shrimp on a bed of coleslaw, and a toasted flour tortilla shell underneath.

Senior Culinary student, Sierra Henderson earned third place for her Pastry Tray. She prepared tulip cups, pastry cream, whipped cream and strawberries and Nutella Mousse cups.

Junior student, Marla Fulkerson earned a Gold Medal for her European pastry tray. Her tray included puff pastry with lemon curd and almond pound cake with chocolate ganache.

The Senior Culinary team of D’Nautica Davis, Megan Peterlin, and Katherine Renaudin earned a Silver Medal. They prepared a three-course pre-set menu which included Asian pear and cabbage salad with Miso dressing, roast chicken, braised bok choy, wild rice, and steamed green tea cake with mango sauce.

“Chef Corti and I are very proud of these students," commented Chef McGorray. "For several months they put in many hours of practice outside of the school day to plan their menus and hone their culinary skills. This is a tough competition where students are challenged to excel in their food preparation within set time limits. They rose to the challenge of the pressure.”

Linda Thayer, West Shore Educational Coordinator, remarked: "I am extremely pleased with our students’ success and happy to support our students entering these type of events. These competitions are tremendously valuable for our students. Not only are they learning valuable culinary skills, they are gaining time management and work ethic skills that will help them in their careers. I also want to recognize Chefs Corti and McGorray along with Educational Aide Suzann Schwartz for all that they do for our students. They give freely of their personal time after the school day and on weekends prepping these students so they are ready to compete. This dedication to our students’ growth is directly related to these strong competition scores.”