Valley students cook up a dish of learning

WASILLA — Local schools have been cooking up more than a few good chefs lately.

In the Mat-Su Valley, teams from Palmer High and Mat-Su Career and Technical High schools have led the charge in the study of culinary arts, as well as food and nutrition. Through the national ProStart program sponsored by the National Restaurant Association’s Education Foundation, several of those students have shown their aptitude for both the cooking and the management side of the restaurant business by setting their skills against the clock at annual competitions.

Last year, a team of Career Tech students won the statewide ProStart competition, followed closely by a group from Palmer that took third place. Both teams won scholarship money, and Career Tech went on to finish 25^th in the national competition.

This year, the team of two (it’s usually four) did not place, but team adviser, teacher and chef Mike Graham said that “they battled hard and they looked good.”

“It was a good day,” said Graham, who said the event brought out the state’s best budding restaurateurs. “Heavy competition.”

He said the team received a standing ovation from onlookers at the competition, but had run almost two minutes over on their time limit, which cost them about a point.

And “in a contest where an eighth of a point makes the difference between first and third,” Graham said, one point is too much.

Still, he said he thought the team performed well.

“I’m extremely proud of my kids,” he said.

Those kids were juniors Sienna Best and Michael “Tiberias” Hardy. Hardy said he was expecting the competition to be a challenge, but that he was up for it. Best said she was “feeling pretty good” after their Thursday test run.

Despite the outcome of the competition, Best knows she’s still on track to becoming a professional chef — a dream she’s had since she was 6 years old.

“I wasn’t like a normal kid,” Best said. “I didn’t watch cartoons, I watched the Food channel.”

She recalled the day she made her first family meal, when her mother was busy with a business call. When she came out with plates of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and corn prepared from scratch — standing barely tall enough to reach the kitchen counter — her mother knew she had something special.

“My mom said, ‘You have a real talent for this,’” Best remembered.

Since then, she’s cooked for her family almost every day.

But working with other students at ProStart has taught her a lot, she said.

“It definitely helps with time management and teamwork with other people,” she said.

Though Best is also involved in Skills USA, the National Technical Honor Society and the softball and volleyball teams at Houston High, cooking is her passion. She said she plans to graduate early and enroll in a college culinary program this fall, and has put out applications to the Culinary Institute of America in New York and Texas, as well as Pennsylvania State University and Northern Arizona University.

Returning Palmer ProStart chef Laura Bergey may be bound that way, too, but not for another couple of years.

As a sophomore, Bergey has already completed two years of ProStart competition now and is looking forward to continuing her culinary education, which also started at a young age.

“I grew up on a farm so I was always with my mom cooking and baking and stuff like that,” she said.

Bergey served on both the cooking and the management teams at the competition this weekend, the latter of which requires that students design an entire restaurant — from the floor plan, to the physical menu, to the marketing strategies.

“Everything’s inside a fake town — (the judges) provide demographics for us and we pick our target markets and explain why our restaurant would be such a hit with them,” said Breanna Seagraves, Bergey’s teammate.

Seagraves is a senior this year, and got turned onto ProStart by her younger sister Kayleigh, who was a part of this year’s and last year’s culinary team at Palmer. Breanna said she cooks “a lot more than other kids I know” and is “really good with a frying pan,” but she’s most interested in hospitality and management.

“When I first got into this (ProStart), I thought it be like a fun side project,” she said. “Now I kinda wish I wasn’t graduating or I wish I’d done business management last year so this year I could’ve like, dominated.”

Bergey and Breanna Seagraves were joined by newcomer Adrianna Nyberg to form Palmer’s management team, and rookies Connor Monroe and Kathryn Shelton added to the culinary team. The management team took third place at the state invitational this weekend.

“They worked very hard and very long hours after school — and on weekends and holidays,” said Chef Penny Schram-Browner, the students’ adviser.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.