Junior Year High School Essay

Junior year of high school I attended a school called; Columbus Downtown High School. The school was a two year career development high school, only including juniors and seniors in the entire school. There were a few select programs you could go for such as: Cosmetology, ROTC, Police Enforcement, Culinary Arts, and Business. I chose to go for was Culinary Arts. Junior year was an exciting year for the two years I went there. The reason being was I was picked to participate in a culinary competition called: Ohio Prostart. The culinary cooking competition was for high schoolers pursing an education in culinary programs at there high schools all around Ohio. I was thankful enough to participate in such a big event. It was a chilly Monday morning in the middle of February. I wasn’t too happy with the weather, it just made the day seem dull. I was hoping to have some decent weather that could help me get into the positive spirits of competition. Besides the weather being a drag my teammates, teachers, and I made it to the venue three hours before we were supposed to compete. Our teacher, Mr. Bandman felt that it was necessary for us to show up to the venue so early. I didn’t say anything when I arrived to the venue, but on the inside I was slightly freaking out. I was feeling this way because I was about to be competing with my team members in front of 100 people and at least ten judges. Entering the venue, we went straight to the prep area for competitors. I checked on the carts to make sure I had all the utensils and food I needed for what I was preparing. “Are you as nervous as me?” my team member Kye, asked me as she checked through her cart also. “I can guarantee you, I’m more nervous than you are,” I responded …show more content…
Sometimes the recipe worked out, however other times it fell flat. When competition started I got right to preparing my dish. I was hoping the whole time that my dessert would actually do justice, and come out correct. I started with my sugar sculpture first. This is just caramelized sugar, I was wanting to let harden after I made my desired shapes. I put the pieces aside, hoping they would harden so by the end I could put the pieces together. I went on with the recipe poaching my pear and helping my team members when I had down time waiting for my own dish. Time went by incredibly fast because it was already the last ten minutes of competition. I started to slightly panic when I checked on my sugar sculpture pieces, and they hadn’t hardened in enough time to even be made into a sculpture. Consequently, I had to throw the pieces away because there was nothing else I could do. My dish was left uncompleted, and for the rest of competition I was upset. Our team ended up getting 11th place. If it wasn’t for the sugar sculpture we would have probably gotten a higher ranking. The competition was an amazing opportunity because I was able to see how the people on the cooking shows such as; Top Chef, feel when they are competing. You have to be driven, fast, and ready to handle business when it comes to cooking in a competition. Even with the setback of knowing we didn’t win and my dessert was a fail, I learned a lot that day. I learned that even