University Involvement Board Cupcake Wars Competition

Today I was a judge for the first ever University Involvement Board Cupcake Wars Competition:

The following was the criteria for the teams and how the two day competition is designed.  Below you will find many many photos of the event.

The teams were judged on the following:

• How well the cupcakes represented the JWU SPIRIT
• How well they worked as a  team
• How well they used the supplies given to them
• Overall presentation

I must say all 8 teams are winners, they all did a great job, and all should be proud of their work!!!!  As well a round of applause goes out to the University Involvement Board, they did a great job planning, preparing and executing this event..

• Teams were made of 4 students each
•  Event was held at the Cuisinart Center for Culinary Excellence lobby on Friday 3/25 @ 11:00 am.
• Round One: Today's Round
• Teams will be given the task of decorating 12 cupcakes.  Chocolate, vanilla and red velvet cupcakes will be provided. Ingredients for icing and decorations will provided, and teams will be responsible for decorating.  
• Judges will meet and select two teams to continue on to round two based on the cupcakes decorated and application information.
• Round Two: Saturday's Round
• Finalist teams (2) will have the task of:
• Coming up with a design/decorating concept to present a 100 cupcake display with the University Involvement Board theme for the UIB Launch Party on Saturday (3/26) evening.
• Purchasing ingredients for 100 cup cakes (cake and frosting) additional decorations, supplies for a display, and any other materials they need with the $250 provided by UIB.
• Teams will have a classroom in the Cuisinart Center on Saturday morning to bake and decorate 100 cup cakes. They will then have the afternoon to transport and set up a display for the UIB Launch Party beginning at 6:00 pm in Pepsi Forum.
• Judging panel as well as student votes, will judge displays and select the final winner to be announced at the Party.

 The Contestants:

The Cupcakes:

The Event

The Judges:

Doug Stuchel, Kristin Pearson, Mike Mroz

The Winners of Round 1:

Team 1:
Jennifer Hall
Shawnee Stephens
Kaitlin Russell
Edward Amaya

Team 2:
Lori Schulman
Marlene Keller
Georgia Wodder
Haley Sausner

The Winners of Round 2:

Team 2:
Lori Schulman
Marlene Keller
Georgia Wodder
Haley Sausner

Great Job!!!!

 

Until my next blog Eat Well, Be Safe, Live Life.

35th Annual Career Expo

On Thursday March 10th JWU Providence hosted their 35th annual Career Expo.  Over 120 companies and organization came to the Providence campus to recruit students for full-time employment opportunities, summer jobs and internships.

In addition to the Career Expo we invited some of our top companies who provide year long internship opportunities or who offer management development programs to our graduating students to attend a  meet and greet employer/student breakfast.

One of the most exciting parts of our Career Events to me is seeing our JWU alumni who are now representing some of the best hospitality/foodservice companies our industry has to offer or come to the event to say hi.

A Special thank you to the faculty who brought there classes to the Expo. As well as my Chef Recruiting friends, without you my job would be so much harder.  I greatly appreciate spending time on campus and meeting with our great students.. There are to many to mention but here are just a few.

Chef Pauli from Disney

Chef Christian from the Hyatt Harborside in Boston

Chef Amy Tormey and her team from Compass Group

Frank Marino from the Patina Group

Americas Test Kitchen

Great American Restaurant Group

Jeff from Wegmans and his team of Chefs



Research Chef Association- Student Competition Part II

Today was the Annual Luncheon at the RCA where various scholarship winners and various competition winners are announced.  For the Student Culinology Competition the JWU Student Team placed 2nd in the competition:  Great Job Team...

Here are the first second and third place winners- Great job done by all teams- They are the future of our industry. First place went to Southern Minnesota State University and third to University of Guelph.

Yesterday was the Culinology Expo where the suppliers who shape the R&D world show their products and provide many tasty offerings.  Several of the suppliers, their employees and the attendees to the show are JWU graduates.  Here are just a few:

Finally for this posting, my final posting from Atlanta GA.  Enjoy the pictures of Centennial Olympic Park.  I had the pleasure of walking through the park many times here in Atlanta.  Those of have read my earlier post when I was in Singapore, may remember my reference to parsley planted in a flower bed as my point of reference at the MRT station.  Here in Atlanta parsley is in many of the flower beds.. who knew, Parsley was the hot new trend in outdoor floral displays.

If I attend the RCA show next year, here is where I will be... Until we meet again....

Research Chef Association- Student Competition

Atlanta Georgia: Research Chef Association Annual Conference Culinology Expo

Starting shortly after 6:00 a.m. the JWU student Culinology Team started there competition.  They had until 8:00 a.m. to prepare and present their proposed Southern Dessert Concept Featuring Peaches for a Family-Style Restaurant.  The teams proposal was a  shelf stable peach jellyroll. called the "Peach de Resistance" They are competing against 5 other teams, Louisiana State University, Mississippi State University, Southern Minnesota State University, University of Guelph and the University of Minnesota.

Finalist teams will commercialize and ship their frozen dessert to the competition site in Atlanta.  On the day of the competition, teams will prepare their fresh, gold standard menu item.  In a Culinology Match Test, competition judges will compare each teams plated, commercialized dessert against their corresponding freshly prepared dessert against such criteria as ingredient composition/authenticity, professionalism, technical skill, safety and sanitation and overall similarity to the gold standard.  The competition winner will be announced at the Annual Lunch on March 5th.

The following is the product description and  presentation:

The following is the gold standard recipe they created today for the competition.

I will keep you posted on the outcome when the winner is announced on Saturday.

More pictures of the sights of Atlanta and the RCA in my next update.

Have a great day......