Alexandra Glennon
The Culinary Caddies worked as a cross-CTE team of competitors.
The Culinary Caddies of Wheeling Park High School took second place overall at the Culineering Challenge October 23rd at Oglebay Resort. The team consisted of two engineering students, Luca Swartz and Josh Hess; two culinary students, Kathleen Gonzalez and Jayden Clutter; one machine tool technology student Brice Ritchea, and the Park Press’s Ella Mae Wheeler as the social media correspondent.
The Culineering Challenge is statewide competition that mixes engineering and culinary expertise. Last year, the competition had to engineer cakes that were not only delicious but also indestructible against seismic shaking. This year, the theme of the competition is all about tee-time and tea flavors.
The first challenge was to build an edible mini golf course using particular flavors and specific West Virginia landmarks. The tea that was selected for the Culinary Caddies was chai and their landmarks were the New River Gorge Bridge, The Greenbriar Casino, Babcock Cabin, and the iconic Almost Heaven swing.
“We have to make a mini golf hole, and we were also assigned a tourism region of West Virginia. Our hole is supposed to embody that tourism region, and we were assigned the Greenbrier in New River Valley,” said Luca Swartz.
In the competition, you must have visuals such as moving parts.
“We are hoping to have a moving gondola that brings the golf ball to a bridge, which is the New River, Greenbrier bridge,” said Luca.
Mrs Hillberry, the culinary teacher at Park, tells us about the preparation in the kitchen to ensure the tasting aspect of the competition was up to the challenge.
“It’s a multifaceted competition, so we are doing a lot of baking and prepping gingerbread and our decorative components. We are working with our engineering and robotics students to firm up our design and make it structurally sound and edible at the same time,” said Mrs. Hillbery.
The competitors worked as a team tirelessly to get ready for the challenge to enhance their performance throughout the competition. They aim to show how all of the studnets from their resepective CTE’s can come together to create nothing short of a hole-in-one.
“It just goes to show how much we work together in CTE. Even though it’s culinary, we are working together with multiple other CTE programs to create one project,” said Mrs. Hillbery.