Friday, March 29 was an exceptionally good day for Alejandro Alcantar, Nathan Garza and Destiny Whitener. The Goose Creek CISD Culinary Arts team cooked their way to first place in Aramark’s 2019 Lone Star Chef state contest with their recipe for “Nathan’s Crunch Wrap.”

Fourteen Texas school districts sent teams to the Lone Star Chef finals at Minute Maid Park in Houston that day, where their challenge was to create and prepare a dish that fit this year’s theme – “Eat the Truck.” 

Coached by Chef Kylie Sobczak of Stuart Career Tech High School, the students took the food truck theme seriously when they created their recipe.

“We wanted to make something that was fast and easy to eat on the go,” said Alejandro Alcantar.

Their first inspiration was to make pupusas, but then teammate Nathan Garza said the idea for “Nathan’s Crunch Wrap” came to him in a dream. Destiny Whitener’s perfect wrapping technique completed the winning dish.

Prior to the competition, all teams enjoyed a tour of Minute Maid Park provided by the Houston Astros, plus a BBQ-themed lunch prepared by the Aramark chefs who run the park’s food operations.

Once lunch was over, the real work began. The high school culinary teams had time to set up their stations and scope out the massive table of ingredients before the 30-minute cooking clock started. They also learned that they needed to include at least two of these four “mystery ingredients” into their recipes: Poblano Pepper, Grapefruit, Shitake and Portobello Mushrooms and Radishes.

“Hehejandro and the Boys” – as the Goose Creek team called themselves – remained poised and calm as they prepped their dish for the judges.  They were able to incorporate three of the mystery ingredients into their pork wrap.

Their perfect execution won over the judges and “Hehejandro and the Boys” went home with a first-place trophy and $2,500 in scholarship money.