After the success of last year’s inaugural event, local students will again be firing up the grill at the 2016 Coffman Cook-off this upcoming April.
Thanks to the partnership between the Leadership Dublin Executive Program and Dublin Coffman High School’s food provider Chartwells, the cook-off will take place again this spring, with the winning team earning $1,000 and having its recipe put on the school’s menu.
“It was a great project. Some of us felt really passionate about it, and we felt like it was the right thing to do,” says Brian Hunt, the director of dining services of Chartwells and Dublin City Schools. “It was a great community event, and it gave the students the opportunity to have a voice and determine what’s on the menu.”
The Leadership Dublin Executive Board began the cook-off last year after it was given the task of the Simply Good Program, through which it was to design a sustainable, entertaining and fun program that would promote healthful cafeteria options and educate the students on nutrition, says Julie Rower, project class member of Leadership Dublin.
With the help of Chartwells and Linda Worden, the teacher of the school’s “global gourmet” class, the Coffman cook-off was created.
“We had to design a program that would carry out after we left the program, so we decided to have a cook-off with the students,” says Rower.
The 2016 cook-off will be bringing on Dublin Jerome High School as a second school to participate, says Hunt, as this year’s event is expected to be bigger than last year’s.
“I am looking forward to our project that we worked on so diligently, and I’m excited that it is something that Brian is going to carry on for the benefit of the Dublin school district,” Rower says. “The kids will probably start discussing it after the holidays. They are getting so excited.”
To decide who will compete in the cook-off, teams of five students will submit videos in which they promote their recipes. Last year, about 30 videos were submitted. From these submissions, Worden, Hunt and Leadership Dublin narrow it down to seven final teams, says Rower.
These teams will promote their recipes on Coffman Live, the school’s news show, and then the students at the school will vote to decide which three teams will compete in the judged challenge, just as they did in last year’s competition, Rower says.
“The competition gives students the power to tell us nutritionally the right thing to do, and what they want to see on the menu,” Hunt says. “Sometimes, their mom or dad makes that decision, but this is an opportunity for the kids to have as much of a say in this as their parents.”
The winning recipe from the 2015 competition was fajitas, beating out several other recipes, including shish kabobs, chicken quesadillas, jambalaya, turkey Reuben sandwiches and more, says Hunt.
In addition, last year’s final cook-off featured Bal Arneson of the Cooking Channel’s series Spice Goddess as a judge for the final cook-off.
“The students absolutely loved her,” says Rower.
The cook-off is also a great way for students looking to go into the food service industry, says Jenny Amorose, chief operating officer at the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, as they get to meet professionals in the industry.
“It creates some exposure for students who want to be in the food industry in their future,” Amorose says.
The Simply Good Program consists of seven group members from Leadership Dublin, and Rower says the plan with this cook-off is to market it and replicate to promote good nutrition at other schools.
“These are people who did not know each other, and we had to work together to make this project work. It was an awesome project because it went very well,” Rower says. “It brings everyone together to focus on health wellness.”
William Kosileski is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at hbealer@cityscenecolumbus.com.
Winning Fajita Recipe
Ingredients
