Lindy Hutton

Smiling at the camera, seniors Anastacia DeCuir, Eren Bassett, Charlie Lehman and Katie Young celebrate the results of the ProStart competition. They placed second after an hour of working together in a small area with minimal materials. “We weren’t expecting or expected to place at all,” Bassett said. “So the fact that we got second and a bunch of our teams got shoutouts for our individual dishes is crazy. We had chefs individually coming up to us, congratulating us for our dish.”

One hour. Two gas burners. No electricity. Four students. This is all that each team got during the competition to make a three-course fine dining meal with multiple components in each course. While the odds didn’t seem to be in their favor, the senior Cedar Park team was able to take second place. 

The ProStart Invitational consists of many different schools competing against each other to make a meal to present to the judges. Many of the other schools competing were Culinary Institutes who had a bigger budget, five or six overseeing chefs, and more materials. Despite this disadvantage, the senior team still placed second. 

“In a way, [our limited resources] kind of makes us prouder of our accomplishment,” Senior Eren Bassett said. “Cedar Park is literally just us and our chef. We only have what we have in our intro kitchen, which is not enough materials. We don’t have professional chefs, and it’s just a different playing field.”

Culinary Teacher Lindy Hutton said that nobody was expecting them to place because other schools had access to more resources that allowed them to be well-prepared. 

“We were shocked, we [were] grateful, we were surprised,” Hutton said. “We did not have the most components per dish. We did not have the hardest techniques, but students executed perfectly, and that’s what it’s all about, that perfect execution. So what [our students] tried so hard to do, they recreated absolutely perfectly on the day, and that’s what got them the place they did.”

In order to execute their dishes perfectly, the students had to work well together as a team. In a space that is only about eight feet by eight feet, Bassett said that it was difficult to do. 

“[The small space] forces you to either love or hate each other,” Bassett said. “When you’re that contained in a space and you’re all super stressed out, arguments are bound to happen. But the difference with our team is that we didn’t let it stop us. We worked through it. We let our anger out, we communicated to each other about what was making each other mad, we worked through it and then [we] formed a deeper bond rather than growing apart.”

Along with this, there were other reasons they worked well together during the competition, according to senior Charlie Lehman. 

“I feel like just because we were all friends before this, and we’re all very passionate about what we do, [we were able to work well together],” Lehman said. “We [work hard] in the kitchen, and the amount of practices we had really improved our communication.”

The culinary team met and practiced together for this competition twice a week since Thanksgiving from right after school until 6:30 or 7:00. 

“They had to design their own menu, find ingredients that worked and things that were a little bit unusual so we [could] surprise the judges,” Hutton said. “They had to come up with concepts for the menu. Then, we tested the different things they came up with, and some were loved, and some we threw away. So students had to be flexible. They had to think outside the box and just make problems work.”

While the students did a lot of work, Hutton guided them along the way and helped them be successful. 

“Chef [Hutton] made us go from 0 to 100,” Bassett said. “We would not have done any of this without Chef. She’s literally the guiding light of our program. And our program’s small, but you get out what you put into it. If you are dedicated, you want to be good and you want to do [your] best, she’ll support you in that. But if you’re just in there because you want to learn how to cook, you wanna get better with food, she’ll also support you with that. She just supports your vision, [and] it’s amazing.”

Lehman said that there were many unforgettable moments at the competition. 

“[When] they were calling [the results], this specific chef that me and Erin had talked to many times looked down with tears in his eyes and he looked up at us, and he was like, ‘I gotta congratulate this team. Cedar Park High School, second place.’ I [was] sitting there in shock, we were all sobbing and then we all ran up there [together].”

Along with the competition aspect of the event, there were also a lot of social aspects. 

“Our Cedar Park students were incredible,” Hutton said. “They went and they cheered on other teams and they interacted with other people. It’s all about building relationships and meeting people, and they truly went out and did that. I told students we were there to experience meeting people, to make connections and that in all likelihood, we probably wouldn’t place. But they did an amazing job, [and] I am very proud of them.”