Feel the Heat

It was an event that will most likely lead to more culinary instruction at the Southside campus, says CHS principal Channell Wilson-Segura, who ensures me that the culinary elective, which was ditched a few years ago, will be back at the high school next year. "We're in the middle of a remodel of the room that houses a real kitchen," she says, and with a lot of help from chef Michelle Chavez, a culinary instructor at the Santa Fe Community College, CHS will have a great space for students to cook in for years to come.

It was Heather Sellers, who serves as Capital High School's site coordinator for the Communities in Schools program (cisnm.org), who first recognized the opportunity to provide more food-related experiences for students on campus. (Launched in 1998, Communities in Schools provides on-site mentorship and other social and academic services to students in an effort to increase graduation rates and keep children engaged in their own education. In Santa Fe alone, it reaches out to 5,000 students annually.)

Sellers, a veteran of the restaurant business and married to chef David Sellers—program director of the flourishing Street Food Institute food truck/culinary-education program and a longtime fixture in the Santa Fe restaurant scene—knew how to engage students using one of the most common human principles of both survival and communal enjoyment: the preparation of food. Intersecting creativity, organization, hard science and hard work, the culinary arts can provide numerous life skills to students of all ages and learning levels. Besides that, who doesn't like to get their hands dirty in the kitchen?

The event on May 7 was judged by seersucker-suit-clad Santa Fe Public Schools superintendent Joel Boyd, SFPS board member Steven Carrillo, Julia Bergen, executive director of Communities in Schools, Wilson-Segura and New Mexico culinary luminary/author Deborah Madison. Chef Rocky Durham, co-founder of the Santa Fe Culinary Academy, served as the always-ebullient emcee.

The timed two-hour competition felt oddly calm, perhaps because the students had a few practice runs with their chef-mentors in the days and weeks prior. Chef Martín Rios of Restaurant Martín schooled his students, Alan Hernandez and Jonathan Zamora, on the particulars of breaking down chicken, sautéing it and deglazing the pan on high heat. Student Alison Rodriguez watched intently while her assigned chef, Angel Estrada of Midtown Bistro, broke down some red onions for a salsa. Chef Patrick Gharrity of La Casa Sena was hell-bent on making sure his wild-mushroom tamales with poblano-infused masa were cooked through, while his students, Gisel de la Torre and her mother, Blanca Lopez, pulsed together a smooth, silky tomatillo-avocado sauce to pair with them. Santacafé chef Fernando Ruiz, student Edith Solis, and her mother stuffed roasted, peeled poblanos with quinoa before plating them with chipotle asado sauce and Southwestern succotash. The chefs, I must say, were on their best behavior.

The action in the cafeteria kitchen was also called out live by Durham, who tried his best to interview some of the students, but these clock-watching cooks were in the zone. "Say, I haven't seen the wine list yet," Durham quipped, keeping things lively for the 30 or so people who showed up to watch the throwdown. As the clock hit the 15-minutes-remaining mark, most spectators appeared more nervous than the competitors.

Rios and his students plated their Asian glazed-chicken-salad tacos (using butter lettuce instead of tortillas) incredibly early, saving the hot-sweet glaze for last-minute presentation and to prevent the lettuce wraps from wilting. Estrada and his team lined up five plates of Pacific blue crab cakes with Chimayó red chile aioli and citrus-jicama salad along the buffet tray-slide in the dining room, waiting for the judging.

Tasting took place in front of spectators, with a few comments from judges served up to various teams. "As someone who grew up eating his fair share of crab cakes in the Chesapeake Bay area," Boyd told Estrada and his students during the tasting, "I can say that these crab cakes do us proud." Final judging happened during a roundtable discussion away from the students, and just one team came away victorious.

Congrats to La Casa Sena chef (and an official "culinary diplomat" to the US Department of State as part of its Culinary Diplomat Program) Patrick Gharrity and his team, who walked away with top honors for their wild mushroom tamales with poblano- and cilantro-infused masa and avocado-tomatillo sauce. All student chefs received a bowl of kitchen utensils donated by local outfit Chef Link Commercial Kitchen Supply, while de la Torre and Lopez were given chef coats emblazoned with the CHS Cougars logo, with patches and service provided free by Santa Fe's own Desert Tees & Sports.

This hyperlocal event is a perfect example of how a community can come together to help make a difference in a student's educational life and future outlook. If we were all as fearless about educating our youth as our youth were in competing during this event, Julia Child would be somewhere in culinary kitchen heaven, holding a spatula and approving with a broad, toothy smile.

Santa Fe Reporter