The Coast Guard Student Team Prepares for American Culinary Federation (ACF) National Championship
US Coast Guard Student Culinary Team has been working around the clock in preparation for the ACF Nationals Championship in New Orleans Louisiana. Vigorous training for the competition began in march immediately after winning "best in show" at the 43rd annual joint culinary training exercise in Fort Lee VA where team Coast Guard earned their spot to compete for the Student Skills National Championship. At the national level, team Coast Guard will represent the entire Armed Forces as they go up against the best culinary teams from top culinary schools from each region of the United States. Over the last 4 months the team has training vigorously to prepare themselves for the challenge ahead.
"The last few weeks have been by far the toughest both mentally and physically " said CS3 Jerry Brown. "We have been working around the clock to perfect our dishes to ensure that team Coast Guard will put out their best food come the day of the competition".
Team Coast Guard has spent the last week trainingj in Fort lee VA where they did several practice runs, loaded out all their equipment and quadruple checked that everything was ready to make the 15 hour trek to New Orleans. They arrived Saturday and immediately got to work organizing equipment, shopping for rations and preparing all of their ingredients for one last practice run before going hot for the main event on Tuesday morning. When asked about the experience CS3 Plotz had this to say "This is the opportunity of a lifetime for all of us. Being able to have the opportunity to compete on the ACFs biggest stage is an honor in itself, but to do so while representing the United States Coast Guard makes it even better".
The National Championship will consist of two days of competition. Day 1 will be part 1 of the Cold Food platter which is 5 hours of preparation for an Edible Cold Food Platter that will be judged the following day.
Day 2 will start with a 3 hour completion on the Cold Food Platter which will be displayed for the judges at the end of that 3 hour time frame. The team will then have 20 minutes to clean the kitchen and rest for a 90 minute 4 course hot food challenge. During this phase of the competition the team will work together to put out 4 plates each of a 4 course meal for the judges.
"This is really we're get to show off our ability to work together as a team. Being that we are the only military team competing we do feel that we have an advantage in this portion of the event because of the training we have received in the Coast Guard." Said CS3 Lundy. Once all competition is complete, they will have to wait until the next day to find out the results at the ACF Presidents Grand Ball Reception where the winners will be announced. Team Coast Guard Student Skills Team consists of 5 junior Coast Guard Culinary Specialists from CSA Yorktown CS3 Jeff Plotz, Captain CS3 Kellie Lundy CS3 Jerry Brown CS3 Christopher Powell CS3 Tristan Cox The Team is coached by CSC Ed Fuchs and CS1 Scott Jeffries.
MilitaryChefs.com wishes the team luck and is excited to report further on the results.
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