ProStart students featured on 'Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution'
The ProStart program collided with ABC’s Emmy-winning “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution” after famed British chef and television personality Jamie Oliver was banned from working in Los Angeles Unified School District Schools. Instead, Oliver found creative ways to connect with L.A.-area culinary students, including bringing his Food Revolution truck to Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade Feb. 12 for a competition among eight L.A.-area high schools, including three ProStart schools: Santee Education Complex, El Rancho High School and Lynwood High School, as well as Arcadia High School, Rowland High School, San Gabriel High School and West Adams Preparatory High School. The episode featuring the competition ultimately aired June 21.
The teams were assigned local chef mentors, and were charged with creating a healthy school lunch recipe using a secret key ingredient – avocados – which was announced at the competition.
The mentors included Ben Ford, Evan Funke, Joseph Gillard, Seth Greenberg, Eric Greenspan, Amy Pressman, Susanne Tracht and Oliver himself, while Michael Symon of the Food Network’s “Iron Chef America” and Jonathan Waxman of Bravo’s “Top Chef: Masters” served as judges.
Ultimately, Oliver’s West Adams team won the prize package, which was coordinated by the California Restaurant Association Educational Foundation (CRAEF), in collaboration with the foundation’s partners.
The winning students each took home a $1,000 scholarship awarded by the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation, a trip to the Culinary Institute of America’s Hyde Park, N.Y. campus and a full classroom set of the ProStart curriculum, “Foundations of Restaurant Management and Culinary Arts, from publisher Pearson.
As a full-fledged ProStart school, West Adams has access to the resources, services and programs provided by CRAEF.
