Recipe for success: Detroit teen wins culinary scholarship

Source: Detroit News
Francetta Turner just baked her way to a $65,000 four-year scholarship at Johnson & Wales University’s 12th annual National High School Recipe Contest held in Providence, R.I., last weekend.

The Detroit high-school senior has big plans to some day open her own hotel/restaurant and this scholarship, says Turner, “is a dream come true.”

“I was actually shocked when they said I won. I was expecting to lose big time,” says the 18-year-old from Detroit’s Osborn High School and Golightly Career and Technical Center.

Turner, who’s enrolled in the advanced cooking program at Golightly, says she’s never really baked before, preferring entrees over desserts. “But when I saw the contest categories, I decided to challenge myself,” she says.

So together with Paullette Pashenee, Turner’s cooking teacher at Golightly and coach for the contest, the two researched the Internet for some ideas.

Turner created a low-fat cheesecake and fruit sauce as well as a low-fat vanilla parfait napoleon and was given five hours to complete both recipes.

“It was all Francetta’s own doing,” explains Pashenee, a former pastry chef at the Ritz-Carlton in Dearborn as well as the Townsend Bake Shop in Birmingham. For two months, the two worked on perfecting the recipes and mastering the plate presentations.

After winning the state finals, Turner went on to compete with nine other culinary students from around the country for the grand prize. In addition to the scholarship, Turner was presented with a statuette.

“It’s like she’s got her very own Oscar,” says Pashenee. “She’s just over the moon about winning.”

Pashenee says one of the judges, Margaret Engel from the Food Network, approached Turner after the contest “and told her she won by a landslide.”

She said the judges were impressed not only by both desserts, but by Turner’s sanitation and her mise ne place. That is a chef’s term for the assembly of all the ingredients necessary for a dish to be prepared.

Turner has decided to attend Johnson & Wales’ North Miami, Fla., campus.
Source: Detroit News