Kent-Meridian culinary team is hot to compete this weekend

It’s not quite the “Iron Chef,” but for the kids in the ProStart Invitational cooking contest, things still can get pretty heated.

And if there’s any doubt whether the members of Kent Meridian’s Royal Cater Club can handle it, just check the kitchen, where there may be a lot of heat, but all four members stand and take it.

Advised by Career and Culinary Arts teacher Bree Devlin and led by senior Danille Jones, the team this week was putting the finishing touches on its meal in time for the March 8 competition in Olympia.

The competition, sponsored by Boyd Coffee and now in its ninth year, challenges teams of high-school culinary students to put together a three-course meal in one hour using only two portable burners and whatever food they can keep fresh on the way to Olympia.

This year, the KM team is making a blackened salmon with scalloped potatoes and asparagus spears, with a couscous salad appetizer and a trio of desserts, from chocolate mousse to pineapple custard to handmade vanilla ice cream with a raspberry-tapioca sauce.

“We decided on our menu through trial and error,” said Jones, the team’s de facto leader and four-time competition veteran. He handles the brunt of actually cooking much the meal.

For example, Jones said, they tried making a dessert with apples, but had to switch.

“It’s hard to break down apples without an oven,” she said.

Jones, who in the fall is headed to Johnson and Wales University in Denver to study culinary arts, said for her, the most difficult part is the timing, but added that having a team of all juniors and seniors makes things a little easier.

“Everything on the entree has to have a burner, so the time restraints have been the most difficult part,” she said.

Handling the desserts for the team, which raises money for the competition through catering, is Rachael Alexander, a junior who plans to pursue a career as a pastry chef.

“I’ve just always loved cooking as long as I can remember,” she said as she whipped together the mousse in preparation. “And every girl loves some good chocolate.”

This will be Alexander’s first year in competition and she is excited to get going.

“It’s good practice for my future,” she said with a smile.

While the women handle much of the cooking, most of the prep falls to seniors Nick Hall and Jon Xayasy, both of whom said they were convinced by Alexander to join the team.

Xayasy said he has always cooked at home, and enjoys doing the chopping and prep for the couscous salad.

“It’s pretty relaxing, you know?” he said.

Hall, meanwhile, is the team’s engine, constantly in motion from the time they start. His mother is a chef and he said he has always had “fondness for culinary.”

For the first 20 minutes, Hall is set to whipping cream for the mousse, which has to be done by hand. After that, he moves on to shaking the team’s “hamster ball” to make coffee-can ice cream for the desserts.

“I can do anything they can do,” he said, nodding toward the burners and the students manning them, “but my main skill here today is manual labor.”

Hall also calls out the time for the team, keeping everyone on track.

As a team, Devlin said the kids are “very unique” but work well together.

“Coming together they work well and know what needs to be done,” she said.

Sure enough, by hour’s end, all three courses are plated and look, well, good enough to eat.

The team, which meets every Monday, also will have to compete in a knife-skills competition as well as answer judges’ questions.

But despite the complicated cooking skills they are learning, Devlin said the competition will come down to timing and making sure their foods do not freeze on the way to the competition (since they must be packed in ice chests on the way to Olympia), though she is confident when the time comes her team will be ready.

“We’re coming through and we’re excited this Sunday is coming,” she said.