THOMASVILLE, N.C. (WGHP) — The Thomasville High School Culinary Team is hard at work, practicing the skills they have learned in Chef Ernest Jefford’s classes. The team was recently named a finalist in the North Carolina Junior Chef’s Competition. Says Jeffords, “I’m excited for my kids. I mean, it’s my kids doing the work, but I’m ecstatic for them.”
For the competition, the students had to develop a creative recipe that could be served for a school lunch. It had to meet the National School Lunch Program nutritional standards and include at least two North Carolina-grown products. Most importantly it had to taste good. So the students began experimenting.
“We wanted something that would peak the students’s interest and it would be very interesting to the students and not something that they would typically see,” says Jeffords.
The team worked together to create a meal they knew other students would love.
Jeffords said, “Whenever we did our survey, a lot of students was like, oh, Chipotle, Chipotle, Chipotle,!”
So they researched and came up with a recipe for a Philly Chicken Cheesesteak Bowl.
Kamiyah Carolina is a culinary team member who helped to refine the recipe.
She says, “If you like chicken and Philly cheesesteaks, like a chicken Philly cheesesteak, I feel like you would like it. It’s just like the same thing, just like if you would like chipotle. I feel like you combine two things that you could never go wrong with and then put them in one. and it tastes good.”
Through the process, the students learned a lot about nutrition and many different culinary skills. But Chef Jeffords says they’ve accomplished one thing that can be hard to teach teamwork.
” I think the main thing that they’re taking out of this is how to work together as a team and how to communicate as a team.”
Carolina agrees.
“Teamwork is a lot,” she said. ” It’s a lot. like you’re gonna be in a team all your life. And there is gonna be at some point where you’re gonna have to work with a group of people and you’re gonna have to know how team work it how it works and how it develops, you know. And with this group, I feel like it helps more because it’s like we knew each other, but none of us knew each other. So it was like, we’re all just put in a group and now we’re all having to basically guide our way through it.”
And as they did, they made their teacher smile.
Jeffords says, “Being able to see them progress and be able to achieve what they’ve achieved it makes them very proud to be their culinary instructor.”
The team has submitted a video of them making their special dish. Up next they will do a virtual interview with the judges. The team will find out on March 21st if they placed in the top three schools in the state and if they do, they will head to the national competition in Kentucky.