Bo­bie-lee Dixon

BO­BIE-LEE DIXON Are you one of those peo­ple who ad­mires the work of the chefs on the re­al­i­ty se­ries Iron Chef? Well if you are, pret­ty soon you may not have to watch the Food Chan­nel (ca­ble) any­more to learn about those amaz­ing world class dish­es cre­at­ed on the show. How you ask? In 2011 this coun­try will see the host­ing of the first ever culi­nary com­pe­ti­tion among sec­ondary schools, spon­sored by the Tourism De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (TDC), and en­dorsed by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion. The com­pe­ti­tion ti­tled T&T's Best High School Chef will be­gin in April of next year, and will see sev­er­al sec­ondary schools across T&T com­pete to show off their culi­nary tal­ents.

Ac­cord­ing to the co-or­di­na­tors of the com­pe­ti­tion, Kirk O'Neil Lewis and the La Mode Cui­sine Com­mit­tee, T&T's Best High School Chef will be­gin with four re­gion­al com­pe­ti­tions in south, cen­tral, north and To­ba­go. Two teams will be se­lect­ed from the re­gion­al com­pe­ti­tions, and then its off to the cov­et­ed prize in June. He not­ed the com­pe­ti­tion will af­ford stu­dents the op­por­tu­ni­ty to dis­play their cre­ativ­i­ty and to be ex­posed to top of the line cater­ers who will be putting out dis­plays and shar­ing sam­ples for the stu­dents and teach­ers dur­ing the con­test. Chil­dren need more Asked what was the in­spi­ra­tion be­hind es­tab­lish­ing the com­pe­ti­tion, Lewis said,"The pro­gramme was planned with the stu­dents of our na­tion in mind. We be­lieve that this com­pe­ti­tion will build school spir­it, pre­pare stu­dents for the world of work, en­cour­age ca­ma­raderie be­tween stu­dents, and im­prove class at­ten­dance, as well as par­tic­i­pa­tion."

He added that T&T's Best High School Chef will give stu­dents, teach­ers, as well as par­ents an ex­cit­ing, new, an­nu­al event to look for­ward to. "You know when I was pro­mot­ing this event, I had the priv­i­lege of vis­it­ing a few schools around the San Fer­nan­do area,and when I talked with some of the stu­dents who were in the field of food and nu­tri­tion I re­alised they were not aware of the lev­el of ex­per­tise need­ed, nor were they aware of the ex­pe­ri­ences await­ing them. "This area, be­ing what I am pas­sion­ate about, made me want to get this show on the road even more," ex­plained Lewis.

Prizes to be won

T&T's Best High School Chef win­ning team: $10,000 do­na­tion to the school for the de­vel­op­ment of its culi­nary pro­gramme, a chal­lenge tro­phy, and blue rib­bon medals for each team mem­ber. Sec­ond place team: $5,000 do­na­tion to the school for the de­vel­op­ment of its culi­nary pro­gramme, and sil­ver medals for each team mem­ber. Third place team: A $2,000 do­na­tion to the school for de­vel­op­ment of its culi­nary pro­gramme, and bronze medals for each team mem­ber. All par­tic­i­pat­ing teams: All en­trants will re­ceive a cer­tifi­cate of par­tic­i­pa­tion.

MORE IN­FO

For more in­for­ma­tion on T&T's Best High School Com­pe­ti­tion email them at

fundievents@gmail.com