One hour until a winner is served

For one hour, there were no love interests. No trig homework. No college applications or study groups.

For 60 students in the culinary arts program at Carson High School, that one hour revolved around meat temperatures, knife cuts and presentation.

Wednesday afternoon was the fourth annual National Restaurant Association ProStart competition at the high school.

The 16 teams had one hour to prepare an appetizer, main dish - including a starch, vegetable and protein - and a dessert. The students are given a $75 spending limit to purchase ingredients.

"They do all of it themselves. They select the recipes, which don't have to be original, but 95 percent of them use their own recipes," said Penny Reynolds, CHS culinary instructor.

The students used that freedom to create dishes using buffalo, lamb shanks, shrimp skewers, homemade pasta, lemon curd and even Ramen noodles. Yet the selections are less exotic than in previous years.

"We had ostrich meat last year, and one year, they wove salmon and halibut together," Reynolds said.

The cooking for the competition must be completed using no electricity or running water and only two burners. Two sets of judges score the entries: one set watches the cooking process and judges appearance, the other judges strictly on taste.

Among the judges were several restaurant owners, executive chefs and the Carson City health inspector.

"The biggest problem I see is improper use of the sanitizer. Doing things like not putting the cloth back in the solution. But, for their skill level, they are doing pretty well," said Michele Reid, Carson City environmental health inspector.

Chef Mike Ramos, mentor for the program, said it prepares students to enter the workplace.

"It's amazing to have students you know have this knowledge come into your restaurant. It saves me hours of training and baby-sitting when you get students from this program," he said.

Chelsea Lavender was on the first team to finish, just short of the hour allowed.

"All things considered, I think we did pretty good," Chelsea said. "If we could do it differently, we'd definitely redo the sauce. We burned our sauce and had to come up with an alternative."

The group ended up using cornstarch, water and garlic to make the sauce covering their pork tenderloin.

"I wish we had more time to go through and make sure we had everything and do some last-minute checks," said team member Marcie Province.

While the culinary arts program has been a part of Carson High for a decade, the competition has only been around for the last four years. The winning team joins a management team and both advance to the state competition in Las Vegas in March.

State winners move on to the national competition in Charlotte, N.C., in April.

The CHS team finished first at the state level and sixth at nationals last year.

"We are an academic high school with a vocational component, and we are competing against purely vocational schools," Reynolds said.

"The community support has been amazing. We raised $12,000 in three weeks to allow us to go to the national competition last year."

The uniforms for the national competition alone cost $1,600.

As for this year's students living up the standard set by last year's finish, Reynolds thinks they are up to the challenge.

"They've got some big shoes to fill, but I think they can do it," she said.

• Contact reporter Jarid Shipley at jshipley@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1217.

ProStart winners

Fourth annual National Restaurant Association ProStart competition held Wednesday at Carson High School.

First Place: Team Nine

Kelsea Keppinger, Amy Perez, Melinda Champion and Melody Champion

Menu: crab cakes, tri-tip steak with fresh-herb pasta and vegetable-cream sauce, hand-whipped strawberry ice cream with whipped cream, strawberry slices and graham cracker bits

Second Place: Team One

Whitney Hoote, Jennifer DeRosa, Barbara Perkins and Sarah Metcalf

Menu: cheese and artichoke potstickers, sautéed tomato salad, stuffed lamb, orzo, carrots and yellow squash, tuiles cookies with pistachio mousse

Third Place: Team Two

Olivia Pestritto, Chelsea Lavender, Marcie Province, Brittany Shirey

Menu: egg frittata, Arborio rice with artichoke hearts, ham, and bell peppers, pork tenderloin, lemon curd and tuiles cookies