Culinary Arts Students Make Their Mark at ProStart

Each year, the ProStart Student Symposium held at Sysco HQ in Grand Rapids gives CTE’s Culinary Arts students the chance to apply their skills in a restaurant setting with students from around the state. The event is put on by the Michigan Restaurant Association Educational Foundation.

Instructor Heidi Rocha shares her students’ experience: “Students were put in groups (management or culinary) with Industry professionals as mentors and with students from other CTE culinary programs around the state. Management students worked with a management mentor to develop a restaurant concept and present to the group how they would market their restaurant. The Culinary students worked with a chef mentor and had to create a full menu (appetizer, entree, and dessert) using the following ingredients: pork loin, hot honey, crystalized cilantro, mushrooms, barley and caulilini.”