NHS — The five-member team does not place, but stands out with its Hawaiian-themed meal

GRANDE RONDE — Having never competed before was just one of the obstacles facing Newberg High School’s five-person team Feb. 28

at the Oregon ProStart Culinary Championship, but it didn’t seem to bother the group much.

Unlike many schools at the competition, Newberg’s program is a weekly after-school club as opposed to an elective class that runs all year.

Oregon also fields one of the strongest competitions in the country, with its winner having won, as well as placed second and third multiple times, at the national competition.

Still, the NHS team stood out for its choice of Hawaiian cuisine and impressed judges with the harmony of flavors they presented on each of their three dishes.

Newberg did not place in the top five and is still waiting to receive its final score and ranking (only the top five are released publicly), but the team and lead teacher Jane Eilert felt it performed up to its full potential.

“They definitely held their own,” Eilert said. “The first couple of years we competed, there were 40 schools that participated, so after the top five, there were a few tiers. Now that there’s only 20, it’s basically the top five and the other 15 places are basically all neck and neck.”

Newberg did not send a team to last year’s competition, but team captain Tim Forbes and fellow junior Nathan Spurgin did attend to pick up as much as they could.

After two team members dropped out, the final lineup, which includes senior Anna DeLong and freshman Michael Forbes, along with alternate Israel Pintor, wasn’t finalized until after winter break, giving Newberg yet another disadvantage.

The team was mentored by local chefs Val Daniel, who runs the food service program at NHS, and Anthony Danna, a chef who now runs the kitchen at Astor House.

It was Daniel, a native of the Aloha State, who suggested some Hawaiian options, and the student eventually opted to prepare ahi poke (pronounced poe-kay) for their starter, kalua pork with yams and steamed asparagus for the entrée, and haupia (ha-yoo-pee-ah), a coconut pudding.

At the competition, teams have one hour and two butane burners with which to cook their menu, while also having no access to running water.

The choice of ahi poke, a raw tuna dish with papaya and wasabi cream that is akin to a tartare, gave the team some flexibility because it did not require the use of a burner.

One of the toughest challenges of the menu was adapting the kalua pork, which was inspired by the traditional luau preparation of a whole pig buried and cooked underground, to the competition format.

Their solution was to steam the pork in a Dutch oven with some wood chips.

“When you walked in, you could smell the smoke and people would be looking around trying to figure out where it was coming from,” Eilert said.

DeLong prepared the haupia, garnishing it with pineapple, caramel sauce, chocolate pineapple leaves, shaved coconut, Hawaiian sea salt and a strawberry rose.

The senior raved about the ProStart club and competition experience.

“I loved it,” DeLong said. “It’s really the only thing of my senior year that I wish I could do again because I had so much fun.”

As an alternate, Pintor advised the team during the competition, but otherwise couldn’t use his hands. Good teamwork proved to be a hallmark of the group, which received positive feedback from the communication judge.

“Even in the last two weeks, they took their meal several levels higher,” Eilert said. “Each day would be a huge step up, so walking into the competition I knew they were going to do well. And to see how well they did and the final product, they did.”

Written by: Seth Gordon