Teen Iron Chef competition provides delectable diversion

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

The true winners were … anyone who likes pineapple.

Seventeen Charles City teenagers put their cooking skills to the test Monday at the Charles City Public Library’s first-ever Teen Iron Chef competition.

The goal was to assemble a culinary masterpiece from scratch, and the competitors all gave it a tasty try.

Stacey Leerhoff, youth services director at the library, explained that the secret ingredient — pineapple — had to go into whatever dish the contestants prepared.

“They just have to create something that incorporates the secret ingredient,” Leerhoff said.

Contestants grouped themselves into different teams and were provided different mini-appliances, such as toaster-ovens, blenders, waffle irons and other cookware.

They also had an array of ingredients to choose from — such as Bisquick, bananas, chicken, bacon and ham — to create whatever they could imagine. The only rule — no recipes, no books.

Hy-Vee dietician Julie Mayhew was on hand to teach the contestants a few things about food preparation before the competition began. The groups each had an hour to cook, with prizes awarded to the best dish.

In the end, the winning team was composed of Shya Simmons, Tuezdae Collins and Sincere Collins, creators of the “Waffle Sandwich.” Second place went to Lilah Slessor and Elise White, who pieced together “Pineapple in a Bun.”

Judges were library directors Annette Dean and Dana Schwickerath, library board member Collette Schmidke and Chef Ted Smalley from Hy-Vee. They evaluated each item based on presentation, looks, taste, creativity and how well the young chefs talked to the judges and explained what they did.

The judges all commented that the eating and tasting were the easy parts of their job, but choosing the best chefs was difficult.

“All of you should go home feeling that you can be very adequate in the kitchen, because you certainly can,” Schmidke told all the participants.

Smalley worked with the contestants and offered helpful advice throughout the hour-long competition.

“It’s really great seeing this much enthusiasm for cooking at this age,” he said. “It develops a career path if they decide they want to go into restaurants or food service. Food service has so many different sectors, there are so many ways you can go.”

He said that individual creativity was the attribute that made the biggest difference.

“Everybody can do a certain amount of cooking, but the creativity can help you personalize it and make it your own,” said Smalley, who added that there were no competitions like this when he was a teenager. “I just started cooking with my mom, and watching her cook.”

Smalley said he initially started waiting tables in a restaurant, and six weeks later he was assistant manager.