Ankeny Students Place Second in Des Moines World Food Festival Cooking Challenge

Ankeny High School Culinary Arts students Dani Schon and Amanda Schneider placed second in the Country Financial Cooking Challenge held Saturday, Sept. 22, at the World Food Festival in Des Moines.   

The contest consisted of cooking teams being allowed one hour to race through the farmers market and buy everything they needed to make an entree and a dessert to serve to judges. They were provided with $50 in "market bucks" to accomplish their task. Upon completion of their shopping, they raced to the US Cellular building where they had one hour to prepare the dishes of their choosing.

"We really attribute our students' second place win to our team member’s abilities to adapt and problem solve to make things work," said Kim Adams, AHS culinary arts teacher.  "They ran into some difficulties such as frozen meat, no soy sauce, wind making it difficult to cook on a propane burner, and only one cooking source. Dani and Amanda chose basic recipes that were easily adapted to the selection of foods found at the Farmer's Market." 

Dani and Amanda chose to make an Asian stir-fry and cantaloupe with a lemon herb sauce for their presentation. Instructors Kim Adams and Lisa Andersen from the Ankeny Family and Consumer Sciences Department helped to prepare the girls to compete in the cooking competition, a first for Ankeny High School students.

In the last few years the school has adopted the DMACC curriculum for Food Prep I, and through the curriculum review process, courses have been aligned in grades 6 through 12 with higher level standards in mind. The commercial kitchen at the new high school has also given students an opportunity to work with tools and equipment that are the same as those used in the industry, and helped to prepare the students for competitions such as these.