Top Chef (High School-style)

I now have another item to add to my culinary resume - Idaho District III High School Culinary Competition Judge. Sure, I've judged a couple of chili contests but this - to put it in cooking terms - was the whole enchilada. This past Wednesday, I got to spend the afternoon at the Renaissance School in Meridian where I judged dishes prepared by ten high school culinary teams from around the Treasure Valley.
Going into the day-long competition, the teams had no idea what dishes they were going to be preparing until they walked in the door of the state of the art commercial kitchen at the school and were handed their menus. In the weeks prior to this competition, back at their high schools they had practiced preparing a number of different menus that they "might" be asked to prepare in the competition, so they had at least some familiarity with what they would be fixing. The teams had to prepare a complete meal for two with a salad, entree and dessert and I had the pleasure of judging the dishes on taste and appearance. The teams were also judged on how they performed in the kitchen with their time management, prep work and the actual cooking. The kids were also judged on their personal appearance (proper uniform, hair, etc.) and all the scores combined determined the winning teams who will compete in the national competition in Chicago.
The menu the teams had to fix was a tomato, asparagus and mozzarella salad with a vinaigrette; a seasoned boneless pork chop with sauteed peppers and onions, a potato dish and for dessert, a fruit tart with pastry creme. The recipes themselves weren't really complicated (although I can't remember the last time I actually made pastry creme) but the ingredients were such that the dish could be either really good or really bad. Pork is especially tricky (at least for me) and I've fixed more than my share of overcooked and undercooked pork chops so I was interested to see what the kids came up with.
I have to say, overall, I was very impressed with what the kids brought out. Several of the dishes I tasted I would have paid money for in a restaurant. In fact, there was one pork chop dish that was so good that I truly wanted to sit down and eat the entire thing. Presentation-wise, there were some very nice looking plates and I had to keep reminding myself, as I was judging, that these were high school students doing all this work.
I wish I'd had this kind of opportunity when I was in high school but all I had was "home ec" where we baked cookies and tried not to burn down the home ec room. Home ec has now morphed into "culinary arts" and if these kids are any indication of things to come in the culinary world, I think we, as restaurant patrons, have some exciting things to look forward to.