Essex Middle School students, Evie, Eli, Ella, Eva, and Davide, attended an after-school cooking club last year and asked their instructor, Sonya Kennedy, who is also the nurse at EMS, to coach them for the Jr Iron Chef Vermont Competition.
Jr Iron Chef VT is a statewide culinary competition challenging teams of middle and high school students to engage in improving their own health and the health of their community by creating nutritious, local dishes to inspire school meal programs.
Kennedy and the students worked with John Dowman, from the Center of Technology, Essex, who taught them basic knife skills and developed their recipe.
They also worked with Sarah Stauss, a cookbook reviewer, and food aficionado, who also helped develop their skills.
The team, known as Wisk-E Bizness, has met and practiced multiple times a month since October 2022 to work on food prep, recipe development, communication skills, leadership, flavors, and food exploration. They had a lot of fun!
They entered the competition at the Champlain Valley Exposition on March 11, with their special recipe; healthy, vegetarian bolognese.