Students are improving their cooking skills though ProStart, a culinary program that links school and industry. Maize’s ProStart team is made up of juniors Caleigh Schneider, SaMya Wolke, Austin Steuber and Kalyn Compton and senior Josi Johnson and sponsored by culinary teacher Cara Poole, recently competed at the ProStart competition.

The members of this team are all currently enrolled in culinary applications and had to try out to compete. During tryouts, they all got the same ingredient and had to make something from it. Since then, the team has been preparing by developing recipes and working to prepare recipes in under an hour.

It all comes down to one competition a year. During the competition students compete in knife skills and cook a three course meal. They were judged on taste, appearance, recipe writing, food costing, safety, sanitation and teamwork techniques.  

“The whole team [received] best knife skills, which they’ve never given to the same school before,” said Poole.

Also, the team was awarded best beef dish for their entree and second place overall.