Fourteen high-school students representing Technology Center of DuPage (TCD) in Addison, Ill., placed among the top 10 in five contests—including a 1-2-3 sweep in Commercial Baking—at the 2013 Illinois SkillsUSA Leadership and Skills Conference. The annual state championships were held April 11-13 in Springfield with more than 1,300 participants competing in nearly 100 contests.

TCD’s culinary students had a particularly strong showing. Three seniors swept the top spots in the Commercial Baking division: Jonathan Bedell of Naperville (first place), Christine Hood of Darien (second), and Christopher Reusz of Downers Grove (third). In the same contest, two more TCD seniors—Briana Wills of Lombard and Alan Topalovic of Woodridge—placed fifth and eighth, respectively.

Winners of the 2013 C-CAP Meatless Monday Chili Recipe Contest were announced in March by Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP), the national leader providing scholarships, education and career opportunities in the culinary arts to underserved youth, and Meatless Monday, an initiative of the nonprofit The Monday Campaigns, which provides healthy and environmentally friendly information and recipes.

Thousands of C-CAP high-school seniors became “head chefs” in their classrooms and were introduced to the Meatless Monday public-health campaign encouraging everyone to start each week with a healthy meal. While working with their culinary-arts teachers to concoct the original meatless chili entrée, the teens were encouraged to use the recipe contest to explore new fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes.

On March 2, Monroe College hosted more than 40 high-school students from throughout the New York City metro area as they competed for the titles of America’s Best High School Chef and Pastry Chef in the fifth-annual competition sponsored by the Monroe College School of Hospitality Management and the Culinary Arts in The Bronx.

First-, Second- and Third-Place Winners

America's Best Chef:

1. Abdallah Farraj, Port Richmond High School, Staten Island

2. Anthony Evans, Harry S. Truman High School, Bronx

3. Carlesha Alston, Food and Finance High School, Manhattan

The team of Eric Stein, MS, RD, CCE, a chef-instructor at the Kendall College School of Culinary Arts, and Jaime Mestan, CSC, a Kendall culinary alum (’08) and research chef at Ed Miniat, Inc., in South Holland, Ill., took second place, a silver medal and a cash award of $3,000 at the second-annual Professional Culinology® Competition, March 8 in Charlotte, N.C., held in conjunction with the Research Chefs Association’s (RCA) Annual Conference and Culinology Expo.

Stein and Mestan beat two other teams with their three-concept entry that comprised an “N.C. BLT,” fried shrimp-and-grits ravioli with Texas Pete dipping sauce, and “The Ultimate Southern Sundae.” The competition, which was sanctioned by the American Culinary Federation (ACF), called for two-person teams to submit menu ideas reflecting North Carolina regional cuisine via an appetizer for fine dining, a shareable appetizer for casual dining and a fine-dining or casual-dining dessert.

Prior to the competition, teams prepared their concepts and shipped them frozen to Charlotte. On competition day, each team created the fresh versions of its commercialized concepts and was judged in part against how well the plated, commercialized products matched up against the gold standards prepared on site. Entries were judged by a panel of culinary R&D experts against criteria that included originality of concept, nutritional profile, manufacturing feasibility, flavor, aroma, texture, presentation and safety standards.

Frederic “Fritz” Sonnenschmidt, CMC, AAC, spent 34 years as a faculty member and dean of The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) before his retirement in 2002. More than a decade later, he returned to the college’s Hyde Park, N.Y., campus to deliver words of encouragement and inspiration to 69 recipients of associate degrees in culinary arts and baking and pastry arts.

“Cooking and baking is an art. It is a science. And it is a way of sharing,” Sonnenschmidt told graduates at the commencement ceremony on March 1. “Listen and learn and be willing to share your knowledge and allow others to share with you. That’s how you will stay on the cutting edge.”

Sonnenschmidt founded the Gourmet Society student organization at the CIA when he began teaching in 1968. The college was still located in New Haven, Conn., at the time, four years before moving to its current location in the Hudson Valley. The Gourmet Society remains active on the CIA campus to this day.

Maple Leaf Farms is calling for entries for the 2013 Discover Duck Recipe Contest now through June 7, 2013. Open to professional chefs and culinary students, the 2013 contest features more prizes than ever with awards for each of the top five finalists in the professional chef and culinary student categories.

This year’s contest challenges entrants to create an amazing duck appetizer or small plate recipes that can be shared by two to four people. Recipe entries must include a Maple Leaf Farms duck product and will be judged according to originality, flavor, accuracy of the recipe and innovative use of duck products. Professional and student chef recipes will be judged in separate categories, each with their own cash prizes.