Emerging as a finalist at the national Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) culinary competition in Orlando Florida, Leslie Carrillo, 11, and Jennifer Ortiz, 12, represent Orange Glen against 169 other competitors.
The FCCLA nationals was a massive competition for students from all over the country to participate in. This year the competition hosted around 7000 contestants with 169 in the culinary main event. Students competed individually without any assistance.
“It was scary cause you don’t know how they cook and how good they are, if they’ve done it before, cause you’ve only done it with your teammates,” Ortiz said.
To qualify to go to nationals competitors first had to attend a regional competition hosted at Quinza High School, Ortiz ended up placing first at regionals, Carrillo placed sixth at regionals then placed first in the state competition after a mistake in the judging process was fixed, she was marked a zero when it was supposed to be a ten.
“For state I was very very happy I qualified but a little disappointed that it was after the competition because I didn’t get the recognition. My mom hugged me when I told her and was really proud and happy for me,” Carrillo said.
Chef Micheal Reyes prepared the girls to work on a greek salad, greek entree, and three identical plates to present. The students had to prepare for the competition, which required them to make the dish three to four times every Saturday over the course of the end of the school year up until the competition on July 6th, Contestants were given one hour to prepare a dish of choice. Ortiz had to make some adjustments on her dish since it tasted plain and needed more salt. Meanwhile the contestants were cooking, judges took note of Carrillo’s organization skills which reflected back on her dish.
“Your food and how everything is cut and labeled and how it stacks at your station and how you work at your station, is very clean, organized, and the judges can look at it and they could read your mind based on what they see in front of them,” Reyes said.
After the cooking portion of the competition was over it was time to enjoy Orlando and its entertainment and food. Reyes decided to take the girls to fine dine to try different cuisine foods from Michelin restaurants to get a taste of high end quality food. Then the girls had the opportunity to visit two of the largest theme parks in Orlando, DisneyWorld and Universal Studios. FCCLA was able to rent out both theme parks for the contestants. It was at Universal Studios where Carrillo got the call from Reyes that she was placed as a finalist.
“I got a call from chef and he told me that we were gonna have to wake up early the next morning and we were both confused on why, but found out it was because I had qualified. I was honestly shocked because I thought I could’ve done better but I was very happy and right away called my parents and brothers to let them know. My mom was very happy for me but she heard me wrong and thought I had gotten first place but she was still very proud as well as my dad,” Carrillo said.
