Mary Arthur carefully looks over the cuts made by Dylan Crogan, then makes a point.
“Hold your knife straight,” she said. “If you’re cutting it right, it will cut right through.”
Crogan and his fellow advanced culinary students at Oak Harbor High School are practicing knife skills.
It’s something they’ll continue to practice regularly in the coming weeks in preparation for the National ProStart Invitational, April 18-20, at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, Calif.
These are exciting times again for Oak Harbor’s culinary arts program, which is run by Arthur, the advisor.
Oak Harbor placed first at the Boyd’s Coffee ProStart Invitational Feb. 28 at Clover Park Technical College in Lakewood to finish as the state’s top team in the culinary division.
Oak Harbor’s culinary team will join Stadium High School of Tacoma’s restaurant management team as the only two teams from Washington headed to the national competition.
The victory for Oak Harbor set off a tearful celebration for a program that barely missed last year, finishing second in both the culinary and management categories.
Oak Harbor’s management team finished fourth this year.
“Every year that we’ve won, the kids are excited, but I’ve never seen them this emotional,” said Arthur, who was also honored as the state’s culinary teacher of the year.
Even parents cried, Arthur said.
“I’ve never been to Disneyland, so I am very excited about that,” senior Lance Garon said. “By winning, I want to say it boosted my pride, but it also just made me feel really happy. There are not too many words to describe the pure joy I felt.”
Lance Garon is part of the five-member culinary team bound for nationals, all seniors.
The team also includes Angela Cueto, Patrick Punch, Patrick Salgado and Crogan.
Judges scored teams on their cooking talents, knife skills, general appearance, food packaging and various other criteria to determine the winners at the state competition.
Oak Harbor’s restaurant management team finished fourth.
Arthur credited the dedication of the students and mentorship of Scott Fraser, owner of Frasers Gourmet Hideway and longtime advisor of Oak Harbor’s ProStart teams.
In Fraser’s past nine years as mentor, Oak Harbor has sent either a culinary or management team to nationals seven times. He’s advised the ProStart teams for 14 years.
Culinary arts at Oak Harbor is a yearlong program that blocks out two classes each semester and offers college credit. Students also learn the business end by running Wildcat Catering, which serves many community and school events each year.
At the state competition, culinary students prepared an appetizer of Korean pork bone soup containing shrimp noodles and a slow poached egg; a main entree featuring lamb loin encrusted with pistachio and cranberry sausage; and a flocked white chocolate peanut butter bar for dessert.
“I had fun with my teammates,” Crogan said.
“We had really good communication.”
“After second place last year, it was a really uplifting feeling,” Punch said. “We all came together again.
“The judges even said we had amazing communication between us. Even the competition itself was a huge bonding moment.”
With their achievement, Oak Harbor’s students earned more than $75,000 in scholarships toward culinary arts training and education, Arthur said.
Salgado and Punch are seriously exploring culinary arts programs.
A fundraiser dinner featuring the three-course meal that will be prepared at nationals is 5:30 p.m. Sunday, April 12, at Frasers Gourmet Hideaway. Tickets, which are $65, may be purchased at the restaurant.
