Our pages of Cooking Teens Magazine are often filled with tales of culinary showdowns in the classroom. But one recent cooking contest in South Carolina featured a whole new slate of contestants – cafeteria workers from the Lexington-Richland 5 school district. Teams of three cooks from five schools competed in a “Chopped”-style battle of chefs at the Center for Advanced Technical Studies in Chapin, S.C.
Contestants cooked up breakfast and lunch using five mandatory USDA-approved ingredients, as well as common pantry staples. These were no Hot-Pocket lookalikes, though. Workers featured grits, turkey bacon, kiwis, local kale and tomatoes for breakfast. Lunch had to include collards, boneless chicken, mango, red peppers and whole grain pasta. The lunch ladies from Irmo High School – Estelle Goodson, Allison Stokes and Tina Gray – took first, topping sauteed chicken with mangoes, steamed collards and fried tomato, and crafted a pasta salad with chopped kale and red peppers. It took them only 35 minutes to magic-up their fare.
Lunch ladies from Cross Roads Middle School competed in their school district's first "Chopped" competition in Chapin, S.C. (Photo by TIM DOMINICK, The State)
