By Cindy Card Buchholz
Cooking became somewhat of a spectator sport on Saturday, when area high school students competed for top honors in the second annual Top Young Chef Competition.
Ki Snyder, a 15-year-old freshman at Rapid City Central, was named the Top Young Chef, earning a $300 scholarship to a culinary school of her choice.
“I thought it was going to go to a senior,” she said after hearing she had won. Snyder said she isn’t sure where she will go to school after she graduates, but she is certain it will be a culinary school.
Snyder’s grandmother, Rhonda Dale of Rapid City, said her granddaughter has talked about becoming a chef since she was 3 and named her first make-believe restaurant when she was 4.
Three teams, consisting of three or four students each, prepared five courses for a panel of judges at the Youth and Family Services building in Rapid City. About 75 spectators watched one of the teams through the large interior glass windows of the YFS cafeteria. The other two teams were in a closed classroom kitchen in another part of the building. The three mentor chefs served the audience hors d’oeuvres during the timed event.
The competition was through the Learn and Serve Program of Partnership Rapid City. For the past month and a half, 11 students worked closely with chef mentors and honed their dishes. The students had to work with a provided list of ingredients and create their own menu consisting of an appetizer, an entree, starch and vegetable dishes and a dessert.
Wearing professional chef attire, the students had exactly one hour to prepare their dishes, which they had practiced making together at least three times before.
The top team was Chef da-Crue, composed of Rapid City Central students Reece Harter and Abbi Van Vliet and Rapid City Stevens students Dani Brant and Marie Stucke.
Jeff Slathar, one of the mentor chefs and Colonial House Restaurant pastry chef, said the Learn and Serve program helps students who are interested in the culinary profession.
“We try to expose them to a lot of the environment that’s in the commercial kitchen -- and that involves working weekends, nights and holidays,” Slathar said. “We kind of give them an overall background in a little nutshell, so they get an idea of what it’s going to be like.”
Slathar said some of the popular TV cooking shows give viewers a glorified view of the chef alone.
“But what we’re trying to encourage the students to see is that it’s more of a team effort.”
Last year’s competition involved only three students. Because of an increased interest in the cooking field, students this year competed in teams to allow for more competitors.
Last year’s winner, Alisha Schramm, attended Saturday’s competition. She is attending the Mitchell Technical Institute.
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