Saturday, February 6^th, Jonah Aboulafia, 10th grade, placed second in Culinary Arts at the SKILLS regional competition in New Port Richey. This competition took around five hours to complete, and the cooks were judged on several different categories. This includes sanitation, organization, written test, meat fabrication, knife cuts, cooking techniques, and plating.

This is the highest an Osceola student has ever placed in this competition since Chef Long has been at Osceola. Since he placed so well at the regional competition, Jonah gets to attend the SKILLS state conference in Pensacola in April.

Jonah said his passion for cooking began at a young age. “My family has inspired me so much. I would always cook with them and I really wanted to become more advanced at cooking, so I decided to join culinary.”

With many different dishes to cook and very many flavors to use, it an be hard to pick just one favorite dish. Jonah  said, “While cooking so many dishes, it is very hard to just choose one to be my favorite.  I really love all of the dishes I have cooked so far, and one is not better than the other.”

Chef Long said he’s very proud.  “He worked extremely hard to place and it is a very taxing competition,” he said.