Team Members: Maria Provencher, Team Captain and Dessert,
Brandon Show-Entree, Ryan Contraski-Fish Course, Peerce VanMeter-Salad and
Jason Wells-Alternate.
We won the WV cook-off to represent WV in the NE Regional
ACF Competition held in Niagara Falls, NY April 27-May1st.
Competition began with the display of Cold Restaurant
Platter. We did a “Spring Rabbit Medley”. “We were very pleased and the platter
got a lot of praise from the judges and participants. It takes an extreme
amount of work but only counts for 10% of the total point scale.
The next phase was the skills phase. As usual our students
performed like professionals. I couldn’t have been more proud, especially
standing there with coaches and students form some of the biggest and best
culinary schools in the country. We behaved and performed even better than I
expected. It made me very proud to stand there as their coach.
The final phase was the Four Course Meal. The performance in
the arena was immaculate; Chef McCue (Assistant Coach) and I could only observe
from outside the kitchen but as far as we could see the team looked fantastic.
They even finished a little early and composed themselves to begin taking the
plates to the judges at the exact time. It was impressive, their composure was
something to behold! Three plates of each course were taken to the tasting
judges and one plate of each course was taken to a display table. When they
arrived at the display table there wasn’t a student or coach in the event that
wasn’t standing around our table with awe and amazement! I can honestly say
there wasn’t another table there that got the attention ours did. I was sure of
that since I had watched the reactions very closely on each team. It was another
proud moment.
Afterwards our critique was given to us by all but one of
the judges that had to leave, and it was incredible. The only negative thing
said was the fact that the desert was so good they wanted more of the pistachio
ice cream on it! We walked away feeling very, very positive!
The awards banquet came the following day and needless to
say we were very excited. Unfortunately our name was called out a little
earlier than we expected. Third place again? Bronze medals? We expected first
or at the very least second. The critique was absolutely outstanding! How could
we end up in third place? Goes to show, you just never know about these
things. We were disappointed but in
retrospect we should be very proud, and we are. We actually beat Johnson Wales!
One of the oldest and largest culinary schools in the country! The only schools
that did beat us were from Cincinnati, an incredible school and their coach was
the previous National president of the American Culinary Federation! And Delhi,
NY the school that has won the past several years, and I won’t go on about who
their coach was but many of the teams and coaches felt that his position with
the national ACF office should have made it a conflict of interest. For some
reason this has been overlooked for several years.
Regardless of the frustration with the final results, our
team realizes what a fantastic journey it’s been. We came together as a team,
worked hard endless hours month after month and had an incredible time doing
so. There are very few things in this profession that offer the opportunity to
work as a cohesive unit and strive for the common goal of excellence and
perfection. After a few days of disappointment I believe I can speak for all
involved when I say that we were victorious in every aspect of the word. For a
school of our size to compete with the likes of nationally recognized schools
and come home “placing at all” is commendable, and I can say that I personally
feel as though we took on the giants and won!
I’m pretty sure our team members now feel the same way after a few days
of rest and realization. I won’t be licking any wounds, I’ll just begin
thinking of how we might be able to improve just a little more each time we
compete and get a little closer to perfection!
Jay R. Mahoney CEC
Coach/Instructor
Pierpont Culinary Academy
1201 Locust Avenue
Fairmont, WV 26554
Coach/Instructor
Pierpont Culinary Academy
1201 Locust Avenue
Fairmont, WV 26554
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