Jr Iron Chefs Impress at the State Competition!

Congratulations to both teams of CES students who participated in the statewide Jr Iron Chef competition in Essex on Saturday, March 29, 2025! These culinary experts mastered their skills over the course of five months and created recipes that wowed the judges at the 17th annual competition.

This was the third year that teams from Cambridge participated in the competition under the guidance of Kelly Shortsleeve and Santha Dahlin. Shortsleeve, who is the Director of School Nutrition for Lamoille North, had this to say about Jr Iron Chef. "This program is designed to be a collaboration between students in middle or high school to teach them cooking skills, leading up to competition where they can win up to three awards." At the competition, teams have 90 minutes to create their recipe from scratch. Judges are looking for exceptional teamwork, final presentation, use of local ingredients, and of course, taste. 

Team The Sizzlers presented a stunning display of VT Valley Dumplings with a Firecracker Sauce. This recipe consisted of a homemade dumpling wrapper with a seasoned vegetable filling and topped with a sweet and spicy firecracker sauce. Team members included Joyal Smith, Henry Leitz, Lincoln Meyer, Abby Bevins and Everett Gerasimof. The group sourced vegetables from Pete's Greens in Craftsbury, mushrooms from FUNJ Shrooming Company in South Burlington, and flour from King Arthur Flour in Norwich.

Team Wicked Wildcats, consisting of Adalee Ryan, Logan Sicely, Neva Jane Rohlen, Emma Doyon, and Rise Grey, presented a recipe called Beetiful Bites with a Blazing Basil Marinara Sauce. This dish featured locally grown beets from Deep Meadow Farm in Windsor as the key ingredient, which added a rich taste and coloring to the dough. The finished plate consisted of a cheese and parsley filled bite and a homemade spicy basil marinara topping. In addition to the local beets, students used eggs from Maple Meadow Farm in Salisbury, flour from King Arthur Flour in Norwich, and onions from Pete's Greens in Craftsbury.

When asked about what the best part of participating in this program was, sixth grader Rise Grey had this to say. "The best part about Jr Iron Chef is working together, building more friendships, and being more familiar with what I'm doing when I'm cooking."

Students spent the past five months acquiring a comfort level in the kitchen that most sixth graders have not yet developed. Coach Kelly Shortsleeve added that "students learned how to use a knife and a peeler safely, as well as how to sauté, boil, chop... all of those fun kitchen skills that they need to have."

Despite an excellent showing at this year's competition, neither team took home one of the coveted awards. Sometimes though, the best award is trying new things and learning new skills. "I'm super proud of both teams today, they did an amazing job" said Shortsleeve. "Both teams finished with more than 20 minutes to spare. We ran into a few hiccups... and they pushed through and did an amazing job working together to problem solve!"

View the Cambridge Team in Action on WCAX-TV!