It's a sunny afternoon in mid-April at Casa Cano Farms. Madyson Cano stands in front of a semicircle of curious students, chefs and teachers, explaining why her farm doesn't have more of the bright pink and green veggies she last gave them.
"Watermelon radishes will bolt if you plant them in the spring, so usually they're more of a fall thing," Cano says. "You could still get them if you stored them all winter, but we don't have any [anymore]. We will have red spring radishes."
"Do you have any right now that we can look at?" high school student Arlen Everman-Jones asks.
Everman-Jones is one of the four seniors on this year's ProStart culinary competition team at North Central High School. The team, which also includes Allison German, Elina Khadka and Elisa Wilbur, has been dialing in their competition menu since November. With mentorship from their instructor Kim Stewart, plus Wild Sage's managing partner Garth Hicks and chef Elijah Crume, the team's Inland Northwest-themed menu won the statewide competition earlier this year.
Culinary competitions in Washington are typically dominated by well-funded west side schools. They're able to supply ingredients that schools like North Central, a "high poverty" school according to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, can't afford. But the student's intense thoughtfulness, top-notch technique and flawless execution earned them Spokane Public Schools' first-ever spot at the national competition in Baltimore, Maryland, last Thursday, April 25.
Even though they didn't place in the top five, representing Washington at the national level was an honor and responsibility the four high schoolers didn't take lightly. The students' menu was so local, they decided to swap out seasonal ingredients a couple weeks before the big day.
Eye-catching watermelon radishes were originally a pop of color in a fennel and citrus salad that accompanied a steelhead filet. The team wasn't thrilled about subbing the bright heirloom radishes for common ones, which are mostly pale white inside. After talking it through with the Canos, the four young chefs decided to sub in Chioggia beets instead.
"It has like a peppermint swirl look to it," Wilbur says. "The sweetness goes really well with the vinaigrette that we have on it."
In the midst of competition season, the students are learning first hand the flexibility and creativity that professional chefs need to create fresh, seasonal dishes. It's an education that's too often left out of culinary school, one that only comes from intentional relationship building with local growers.
It's mostly thanks to the strong ties that Hicks, Crume and the Canos have made between Wild Sage and Casa Cano that the students can enter into these conversations about what's in the field and on the plate. It can make cooking even more complicated, but also that much more impressive.
"When they're judging and say, 'Hey, your recipe says watermelon radishes,'" Hicks instructs his team, "you can say, 'Well, a local farmer that we work with back in Washington didn't have any watermelon radishes, so we actually went to their farm and we picked out something better.' A little backstory narrative doesn't hurt."
But for high school cooking competitions, it's not enough to have only an entree and a side. For state, the team had to cook a three-course meal in two hours with just two bunsen burners between the four of them. Their first course features pesto-stuffed morel mushrooms, and their dessert is a fry bread topped with huckleberry compote and a huckleberry and hazelnut-studded sugarwork garnish.
For nationals, the team has to make the same three-course meal in only one hour. To get everything ready in time, its members have to choreograph their work down to the second.
"I start off with the mandoline and I cut the fennel and the beet," Wilbur says. "Then after that I cut the shallots, which I then give to Allison."
"I brine the shallots," German says. "I also char tomato and poblano for the poblano sauce, and I give them both to Arlen so he can cut them up."
"Then I give her the asparagus so she can char them," Everman-Jones says. "And when she's doing asparagus, I cut the poblano so I can give it to her and then I make the romesco. And while that's happening, Allison's also charring some hazelnuts. Elina is cutting herbs for pesto. So it's all just working together and just trying to not get in each other's ways."
"I don't know how we haven't stabbed each other yet," Wilbur laughs.
But the high intensity choreography can also be what helps keep the group calm.
"I'm a very organized person," Khadka says. "I have to have a specific way that I do things. If it's not there, I get nervous and I mess up and it kind of falls apart."
When they first started brainstorming their menu, the team toyed with dishes that represented each of their individual identities — Khadka's South Asian heritage, or Wilbur's Irish ancestry.
"But that didn't really create something cohesive," Everman-Jones says. "Instead, we just wanted to create something relevant to all of us in our entire menu."
In addition to consistent mentorship from Wild Sage, the students also met with the local tribal members and the owners of Indigenous Eats restaurant. The recipe for the team's fry bread was donated by a North Central teacher's grandmother, which she has preserved for generations.
The competition in Baltimore is the cherry on top of a wildly successful season for the underdog team. While Wilbur and Everman-Jones plan to continue pursuing culinary education after high school, German and Khadka are ready to invest in other interests after the trip to Baltimore.
"I think it's more about the experience of going to Nationals," Everman-Jones says. "And eating soft shell crab. That's my No. 1 goal. I've been wanting it for a long time."
"I think it's mostly just a have fun kind of thing," German says. "It'd be really cool to win, but I don't expect it out of this. I'm just excited to go because honestly, I didn't even think we were gonna go." ♦
