Selkirk EATs Competition at Vancouver Food Festival

Students from Selkirk College’s Professional Cook Training program recently ate up the competition at EAT! Vancouver, which is known as Canada’s largest consumer food, beverage and cooking festival.

The festival hosted the BC Chefs Culinary Salon Competitions where post-secondary students–several of which are still in high school–competed against young professionals in various categories.

With the accompaniment of Cooking Instructor and Chef Randy Davis, Selkirk College sent seven post-secondary and three high school students (trained at Selkirk College through the Accelerated Credit Enrolment in Industry Training [ACE IT] Cooking program) to EAT! Vancouver to compete in the chocolate and dessert, entree, luncheon and professional categories.

High school students Maya Jansen, Kirsten Jansen (LV Rogers) and Lisa Smith (JV Humphries) brought home five medals while post-secondary students Cora Grosch, Caitlin Laurie, Katie Foster, Feliesha Hawthorne, Andrea Mitchell and Instructor/Chef Randy Davis won seven medals.

With award winning luncheons such as Kirsten Jansen’s melon trilogy, topped with jumbo prawn, crunchy caviar and crispy wonton with a main of prosciutto-wrapped chicken breast stuffed with wild mushrooms and vegetable cream cheese, Instructor/Chef Randy Davis is happy with the results and thought it was very worthwhile. “It was an excellent experience and I am super pleased with the performance of the students,” said Davis. “In addition to our success, we also had an opportunity to work with the Team BC Captain. We learned how to glaze food the way Team Canada and Team BC glaze for world competitions. It was a lot of fun and we really learned a lot!”

In the chocolate and dessert categories, medals were awarded to: Maya Jansen (silver-dessert), Kirsten Jansen (bronze-dessert), Caitlin Laurie (silver-chocolate), Lisa Smith (bronze-chocolate) and Cora Grosch (bronze-chocolate). In the entrée, luncheon and professional categories, medals were awarded to: Maya Jansen (gold-entrée), Kirsten Jansen (gold-three course luncheon), Katie Foster (silver-three course luncheon), Feliesha Hawthorne (silver-three course luncheon), Andrea Mitchell (silver-three course luncheon) and Instructor/Chef Randy Davis (bronze-entrée).

Selkirk students Kelli Bialkoski and Kelly Mitchell received an honorable mention in the entrée and three course luncheon categories. In addition, Kelli Bialkoski and Katie Foster have been nominated to represent the BC Chefs Association for Junior Chefs.

For more information on Selkirk’s Professional Cook Training program, visit selkirk.ca/programs/ht/cook/ or call 1.866.301.6601.

First published on June 05, 2009