By: Sarah Crown 😄😜😇
In January, I woke up at 4.a.m to drive three hours
all the way to Abilene, TX. You might be wondering
“Sarah, Why in the world would you be driving to
Abilene at four in the morning?” 🙄 And the answer
to that question is 4H. Now you’re wondering “What
in the world is 4H?” The four H’s stand for, my Head
to clearer thinking, my Heart to greater loyalty, my
Hands to larger service, and my Health to better living,
and The four-leaf clover 🍀 is a symbol of growth for
5 million members and more than 36 million 4-H alumni
in the USA. Now you think... “So, what is it?” 4H is
America’s largest youth development
organization—empowering nearly six million young
people across the U.S.👧🧒👩🧑 with the skills to
lead for a lifetime. There are so many different things
you can learn in 4H. You can sign up for rocket science,
raising different animals, 🐷🐑🐏🐮🐔computer
programing, engineering ect. “Well what did you sign
up for?” I’ve signed up for junior master gardening🌷🌹
and cooking challenge, but I went to Abilene for cooking
challenge.👩🍳 In cooking challenge, or food competition,
many teams of children up to 6 kids each compete
against each other to cook a dish with the supplies given
in a limited amount of time.⏳ Every challenge has
different ingredients but they all have the same utensils
that we are allowed to use. Items such as bowls, a
presenting plate, paper towels, Hand sanitizer wet
wipes, tasting spoons,🥄 spatula, hot plate, pan,
knife, strainer etc. We have to write our presentation
on note cards. “What do you write?” I had two girls
on my team with me. Cici wrote substitutions such
as “instead of almonds we could have used walnuts,
cashews, peanuts etc. She also did Myplate such
as “Bread is a grain. You need 2 cups of grain a day.”
Kylie did food nutrition such as “The oranges I our
dish have vitamin C. Vitamin C is an antioxidant
which helps protect cells in our body.” Finally, I did
food safety such as “We wiped down the table before
and after cooking, we pulled back our hair, we kept
all flammable🔥 items away from the hotplate, and
we sanitize our hands and made sure that there was
no cross contamination 🙅between foods.” I also
did food prep such as “First, we diced 🔪 this. Then,
we cooked that.” “Sooo, what were your ingredients?”
My team had pork chops, oranges, apples, apple
juice, brussel sprouts, and leeks. 🐷🍊🍎🥛☘️
“What did you make?” We cooked the leeks, brussel
sprouts, and apples together, cooked the pork with
apple juice on the hotplate, and we arrange the dish
to make it look like a smiley face. We called it the
“smiley pork chops.😀🐷” “What did you do after
you finished?” We touched up the plate and worked
on our presentation until the very last second. After
the adults said the time was up all teams stopped
what they were doing and put their hands in the air.
Then, my least favorite part came… waiting.☹️ All
the teams sat with their backs to the table waiting for
the judges to point at them so that they could present
their dishes. My team was an intermediate team which
meant only 9 other teams would be presenting before
us. All the intermediates, juniors, and seniors have
different judges. 9 teams presented before us because
of the 10 intermediate teams we were 10th. (our team
number was 310 remember that because it will be
important later.)It took about 10 minutes for each
team to presents so in the meanwhile my team sat
staring at our notecards 📜until they called up our
team. When we finally stood up my legs felt like
jelly as my team marched🚶🚶🚶 to the judges table.
“What happened next??” 😀😀We said our names,
that we were from williamson county, our dish name,
(smiley pork chops 😁🐷) and we were number 310.
I could see all the seniors presenting in the room
next to us as Cici started presenting. Then, Kylie,
then me. After we finished we brought our dish back
to our table and began whispering until the judges
announced that everyone had presented and we
could leave. My team walked outside to see the
smiling faces of our parents.😊 We all walked d
own to a big building with bleachers surrounding a
man with a 🎤 microphone. “Annnnndd?” After
my family and teammates, and my teammates family
all sat down at the bleachers… the man started to
announce the winners. “305 Hays county,
308 Hardin county, 304 DeWitt County, 302
Glasscock County,” We began to lose hope until…
“310 Williamson County!” We stood up as
everyone clapped. 😁😁😁 That's the story of
my experience at 4H cooking competition.
