For the second time in three years, Crook County High School’s culinary team won the state title for the Oregon ProStart Championships in Salem in March, a contest that showcases future chefs and managers.

“I just love this competition because it’s so much like the real kitchen: it’s high stakes, it requires a lot of dedication and devotion to craft. You just have to put in the time…it sets them up for whatever you want to do in life,” said Macy Hagensee, culinary arts teacher at Crook County High School and the team’s organizer. “It stretches your imagination of what can be done.”

He has been taking teams to compete for 14 years.

Culinary teams from seven different schools each put together a gourmet appetizer, entrée and dessert using two butane flames in an hour. Crook County High’s four-person team made an ancho chile-rubbed shrimp sauteed with sweet roasted corn, carmelized carrots, jalapenos, pistachios and finished with creme fraiche in an avocado rose as an appetizer. The entrée was a pan-seared sockeye salmon, while the dessert was icebox coconut cheesecake with a pistachio white chocolate crust.

The event is sponsored by the Oregon Hospitality Foundation and held by the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association, with nine teams from seven schools participating. Students also have to price everything out and come up with a menu. Their menu, uniform, safety, sanitation and products are all checked and judged. The students are given 30 minutes to organize and an hour to cook. They are also judged on clean-up afterwards.

“It’s just the full gamut of a regular day in a commercial kitchen, it’s just compartmentalized to turn it into a competition,” said Hagensee. “This year, Crook County came out on top, so we had a good day.”

ProStart Student of the Year

His daughter Tayah Hagensee, 17, who has competed twice before and this year served as a mentor for the culinary team, won the Oregon ProStart Student of the Year award, which she said was a shock.

“I had done the application process so I know it was a possibility but I did not expect it whatsoever,” she said.

She was nominated by an industry member and two teachers, and wrote essays about her future goals for the award. She is planning to major in business and minor in hospitality management at Oregon State University when she starts in the fall. She’s more interested in the management side of hospitality, but enjoys being in the kitchen and cooking.

She helped mentor the team, especially with the appetizer and entrée, which she worked on in previous years. She served as another pair of eyes to make sure standards were adhered to, such as completely clean stations.

“It was just fun to get to know everyone and watch the team grow into more confidence,” she said. “I have been going to these competitions since I was 4 or 5, so I’ve always been very interested, and I think just wanting to see if for myself brought me into it.”

Macy Hagensee had the team practicing twice a week since December and once every day in the week before the competition. The four students were all participating for the first time. The Crook County team will next head to Baltimore in May to compete against nearly 400 students on the national level.

‘We were ready for it’

Rylin Olson, 16, put together the appetizer for the competition. He said he was focused on not making mistakes. His family cooks a lot and it’s something he’s glad to keep doing.

Carter Mason, 16, cooked the entree for the competition. He’s always liked cooking and did a lot of baking and experimenting, so was excited to join the culinary team. He said he’s made good friends among the other team members.

“It was kinda stressful going into it, but just calmed down with the team and relied on the muscle memory,” he said. “We practiced a lot so we were ready for it.”

He’s sure the team will score high at nationals, because he’s confident in their teamwork and their dishes. They decided to mix Mexican and Oregon flavors to create fusion dishes.

“It’s another way of experiencing good stress before a competition, which helps me in sports, and I get to step up and be a little bit more of a leader when we’re stressed or something goes wrong or something like that,” he said. “It’s a way to get better at cooking. I’ve gotten a lot better with a knife since we started and precise cuts and being able to expand my repertoire from just desserts to also now dinners and breakfasts.”

Ayla Purdy, 16, worked on the cheesecake and the lime curd. Cooking is fun for her, and she likes being able to make food look like art. The competition gave her a chance to work on plating and presentation, which she feels she improved on.

“It was a little stressful and it was fun. Once we got up there, it was more exciting, I was less scared, and afterwards it was kinda just a blur and I don’t remember doing any of it,” she said.

Wyatt Beaudoin, 16, worked on a little bit of everything for the other three members, but mostly assisted with the dessert. He focused on the tempered white chocolate with sesame seeds, the honeycomb, the toasted coconut and the kiwi.

“I got to do things that I didn’t expect to do,” he said. “I learned quite a bit from doing this. Before this I didn’t even know what tempered chocolate was.”

He said he thought it would be interesting to throw his hat in the ring for the team. He likes learning to cook, how kitchens run, how to plate and present food and meeting new people, he said. The previous team helped out the current team with tips and tricks, he said.

“My two dreams right now are either to own a small family diner or something or become a world-class chef,” he said.