Local Teenagers Advance to National Cooking Competition

The culinary prowess of four local teenagers brought a state title home to Tom Green County last month, when the 4H Food Challenge cooking team took first prize at the state competition.

Katie Gilbert and Jillian Waldron, 18, 17-year-old Lacey Morris and 16-year-old Claire Gilbert represented the county in the competition, which is similar to popular competitive cooking show “Chopped”, team coach Sandy Seidel said.

“With the food challenge, it’s more like a chef or ‘Chopped’ competition, where they get a bag of ingredients and they don’t know what’s in that bag of ingredients,” Seidel explained. “They have a box of supplies that they can use that has all your bowls and skillets and things like that and they have 40 minutes to come up with some kind of dish, to cook it, and to prepare a presentation of a dish.”

At the Texas Food Challenge in June, the girls were dealt a can of tuna, Seidel said. They were allowed to entry the pantry and pick up other ingredients, and ultimately ended up making an open-faced tuna sandwich.

So far, the team has been to state three times together, but have never brought home the championship win. One member of the team has been four times, Seidel said, and she believes that this experience will give the girls an edge at October’s national competition.  

“This is a pretty tight team and think that gives us a pretty good advantage because they know how to work together,” Seidel said. “I think the other thing is they’re very strong in their public speaking skills. They’re able to present very well.”

Typically, two to three judges comprise the panel at each competition and among those may be a nutritionist, those involved in food nutrition projects and other agents, she said.

Dishes are judged on a variety of factors and the presentation made be each team must include how the dish was prepared, the nutritional value, an explanation of how it fits into a diet, food safety measures taken during preparation and the cost of the dish, Seidel said.

“They have to figure out if they have a five-pound sack of flour and they only use two tablespoons, they have to figure that cost. They have to figure all that out in 40 minutes,” she explained. “Having four girls helps a lot because each of them has their own part.”

Five Texas teams will advance to the national competition in Dallas in October, however because the Tom Green County team took first in state, the girls will be traveling to New Orleans next week to represent Texas at the Great American Seafood Cook Off.

“They’re very excited,” Seidel said. “We’re all looking forward to both [competitions]. Right now, we’re kind of concentrating on our New Orleans trip because that’s just next week, so that’s our biggest concentration right now. We’re a little bit out of our element, so that’s a good challenge for us.”

Only one team from each state is invited to compete in the seafood competition each year, making the opportunity to represent the state that much more prestigious for the local team.

After the trip to New Orleans, the team will begin preparing for the national competition in October. “We just do a lot of practices,” Seidel said of the preparation phase. “I come up with all the recipes and all the ingredients and help them with their presentation and presenting skills and all that.”

Since the big win in June, Seidel said that the team has seen outstanding support from members of the community, for which the team is truly grateful.

“Every time they go and talk to someone about sponsorships, they’re so excited about Tom Green County being represented in New Orleans and in nationals,” she said. “They’re very excited and very supportive of our group and I think the girls are really happy about that. They can see that support and it makes them feel good and motivates them to go out there and do a good job.”

Tom Green County has never held a state title in this competition, Seidel said. This year, we may take first in the nation.