{"id":1888,"date":"2014-04-25T19:50:16","date_gmt":"2014-04-25T19:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/?p=1888"},"modified":"2014-04-26T20:04:37","modified_gmt":"2014-04-26T20:04:37","slug":"beach-students-cooking-up-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/beach-students-cooking-up-success\/","title":{"rendered":"Beach students cooking up success"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post was written by Jeff Barba, public relations coordinator for Virginia Beach City Public Schools.<\/em><\/p>\n

How\u2019s this for a tasty bit of news?\u00a0 Teams from Salem and Landstown High Schools will represent Virginia in a unique restaurant management and culinary arts competition: the 13th<\/sup> Annual National ProStart Invitational.<\/p>\n

The National ProStart Invitational is the country\u2019s premier high school competition focused on restaurant management and culinary arts. To be held in Minneapolis from May 3-5, it will bring together the top ProStart students from 43 states and territories to showcase their skills in food preparation and restaurant management. Winning teams will take home $1.4 million in scholarships.<\/p>\n

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Salem\u2019s culinary arts team and Landstown\u2019s restaurant management team took home top honors in the March 14 state competition at Liberty University.<\/p>\n

Each member of the team was awarded up to $15,000 in scholarships depending on the college they select and a knife kit from Dexter valued at more than $200.<\/p>\n

The culinary competition highlights the creative abilities of each team through the preparation of a three-course meal in 60 minutes using only two butane burners. Management teams develop a proposal for an original restaurant concept and apply critical thinking skills to challenges managers face in day-to-day operations. The performance of teams in both events is observed and rated by expert judges from industry and academia.<\/p>\n

\u201cProStart is developing the best and brightest talent into tomorrow\u2019s industry leaders,\u201d said Rebecca Reamer, director of Education and ProStart for Virginia Hospitality and Travel Association (VHTA), which runs the program in Virginia. \u201cProStart gives students a sense of purpose and demonstrates their passion for the future, which will be on full display when they represent the Commonwealth in Minneapolis.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Virginia Beach City Public Schools (VBCPS) culinary arts program began implementing ProStart this school year. Students spend two years in the classroom mastering the fundamental management and culinary skills needed for success. ProStart trains students on industry-specific skills that can be used in all aspects of the restaurant and foodservice industry.<\/p>\n

The two teams recently held a public practice session. The Virginia Culinary Team from Salem started it off with the \u201cCulinary Knife Cuts and Chicken Fabrication\u201d challenge. Two students had to essentially completely disassemble a chicken into perfectly-cut pieces without de-boning it in 15 minutes. Meanwhile, another two students were showing off their knife skills by completing different types of cuts on vegetables. Students were judged on accuracy, safety and waste and the knife skills would be evaluated on consistency, accuracy, safety and waste.<\/p>\n

While the team began to prepare their kitchen for the live cooking portion of the competition, the Virginia Management Team from Landstown High School delivered a presentation to the audience.<\/p>\n

The team is basically selling a concept for a restaurant to \u201cinvestors.\u201d They are judged on their ability to create a fictional restaurant concept from start to finish, including interior and d\u00e9cor, restaurant diagram, organizational chart, menu, sample food items and a marketing plan. They are also required to make a verbal presentation to an audience and a panel of judges, create a visual display and answer critical thinking questions.<\/p>\n

Following the presentation, the attention turned back to the kitchen. The culinary team had 60 minutes to create three complete courses: an appetizer, main course and dessert, of two plates each. However, they can only use two butane burners, without access to running water or electricity.<\/p>\n

ProStart students will leave the program with employability skills \u2013 like leadership, accountability, teamwork and responsibility \u2013 that they can take with them to positions in all industries. Students in the second year of the VBCPS culinary arts program will continue to become certified in ServSafe skills, the national certification for safety and sanitation, but will also have the opportunity to take ProStart certifications which also count as a verified credit.<\/p>\n

Salem\u2019s culinary team consists of Tim Scheetz, Jessica Law, Sandrine Robinson and Aaron Smith.<\/p>\n

Landstown\u2019s management team consists of Spencer Andrew, Cassidy Garcia, Tim Brush, Peyton Auxt and Emily White.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post was written by Jeff Barba, public relations coordinator for Virginia Beach City Public Schools. How\u2019s this for a tasty bit of news?\u00a0 Teams from Salem and Landstown High […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1888"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1891,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888\/revisions\/1891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vbcpsblogs.com\/core\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}