Future Rohnert Park chefs cook up a competition

Like many 9-year-olds, Joseph Harris isn’t a huge fan of cauliflower. Pizza is a different story.

So when the aspiring Rohnert Park chef learned about a recipe to transform the unpopular white vegetable into a cheese and sauce-laden pie, he pounced.

In a cook-off Wednesday against other fourth- and fifth-grade students in the third-annual Future Chefs Competition, Joseph ground a large head of cauliflower in a food processor, patted it into circles as a substitute for a conventional crust and popped it in an oven after topping it all with spinach and salami.

The result? Simply delicious, announced Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District judges who voted Joseph’s pizza the best of 10 student entries.

“I don’t eat (cauliflower) much, but I do like it,” said the fourth-grader at Marguerite Hahn Elementary School, who advances to regional competition and could have a shot at the national title. “You have to season it just right.”

He wasn’t the only budding chef to whip up something special at the gathering in the Lawrence E. Jones Middle School cafeteria.

Kids from the city’s five elementary schools turned out their favorite comfort foods in a TV cooking contest-like setting, producing creative dishes including shrimp linguine, gourmet mac and cheese and two different types of lasagna.

The idea is to get young people thinking about how to make healthy food while allowing them to compete in an area other than athletics, said Superintendent Robert Haley, who sat on a panel of a half-dozen judges.

“I love to see what they create,” said Haley, as students in white chef hats and smocks scurried about the kitchen. “I love to watch the action.”

It wasn’t surprising that many kids in food-focused Sonoma County said they wanted to be chefs someday.

Chloe Griffis, a fifth-grader at Thomas Page Elementary school, said she might follow her dad, Jason, into the business. She said the most challenging part of making biscuits with cashew herb gravy was getting the baking just right.

“It’s her dream to grow up and be a restaurateur, against my judgment,” her dad said, jokingly. “I want her to be happy in whatever she does.”

Layla De Medeiros, a fifth-grader at Evergreen Elementary school, said she enjoys cooking and also hopes to make a career of it. Her Mexican-style lasagna won rave reviews even though part of the preparation brought tears to her eyes.

“It sounds kind of stupid but I’m not that good at chopping onions,” Layla, 9, confessed. “When I cry it distracts me.”

You can reach Staff Writer Paul Payne at 707-568-5312 or paul.payne@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ppayne.