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WTA Culinary and Graphic Arts collaborate on Chef Showdown 2025

WESTFIELD — Juniors and sophomores in Westfield Technical Academy’s Graphic Arts & Communication and Culinary Arts collaborated for the fourth annual “Chef Showdown.”

Steven Forni’s Graphics Arts & Communication students did all the scheduling and planning and chose the secret ingredients for the three day competition, while chefs Eric Rogers and Nicolas Leslie’s students competed in a timed elimination contest.

“I’ve had the least amount of stuff to do this year,” he said, adding that it’s all based on buy-in from the kids in both departments. “I love stuff like this — I love cooking. You enjoy the food better when you make it — it’s the same with my students. They enjoy the whole process, because they’re the ones planning and setting it up.”

On the first day of the competition, the culinary students prepared breakfast for guest judges that included Superintendent Stefan Czaporowski, using three secret ingredients — ramen, banana peppers and cheese whiz. The teams made omelets and breakfast burritos.

On the second day, the winning cooks chose their teammates and prepared international dishes. On the third day, the winning cooks from day two again chose their crew, preparing beef tenderloin and crawfish as the secret ingredients and competed against each other for the winner of the Chef Showdown.

Team 1 that day was led by Kason Toledo, who won on the first two days of the competition. His teammates were Jadden Perez, Gabby Gibson, Cora Collins and Ilianis Rivera. The dish they prepared for the judges on Thursday was beef Wellington, sweet carrots, scalloped potatoes and a cookies and cream cupcake.

Team 2 was co-led by William Tomala and Julian Suggs, Makenzie Gauthier, Gia Perry and Lise Brill, who prepared red wine marinated steak, onions, grilled asparagus and mashed potatoes with crayfish cream sauce, and for dessert, chocolate molten souffle cake.

“We all had our own jobs to do,” said Tomala, after the meal was served.

“The secret is to have the marinade all prepared the day before,” Suggs said, adding, “The key to success is being able to help others.”

The production crew from Graphic Arts & Television, who rotated jobs each day of the shoot, had similar sentiments about the event.

Sophia Paredes, said she took turns as an interviewer, host and on the pride camera – the big ones. “It was a long process. Patience is a virtue,” she said.

Savannah Cardinal, who served as a kitchen director for production all three days, agreed. “It was stressful. You had to be patient and keep your eyes on the clock. I had to make sure all of the cameras were in line, and no one was blocking the cameras or stepping on the cord. We had to be invisible,” she said.

“It was very much an action show — very stressful, a lot of bodies,” said Madison Bryant, who worked the pride cameras all three days.

Logan Bryant, who used the mic and interviewed people for the show, said his job was to capture the most drama he could, something he found to be a little uncomfortable. “On moments when people are having hardship, you don’t want to get the camera in there. But you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do,” he said.

Forni has now asked his students to team up to edit the footage and produce three half-hour segments of the show by May 22, which will appear on the Westfield Community TV’s Youtube channel when completed.

As for the winner of the cooking competition, watch for all three episodes of Chef Showdown on Westfield Community TV, coming in June.

This post was originally published on this site