This is her fourth practice. Her goal Thursday was to again finish the meal in the allotted two hours. She made the deadline last time and wanted to improve.
Contestants chose their recipe based on a set of options. The food selection is“ biased to the Midwest,” says Randy Cheramie, executive director of Nicholls ' Chef John Folse Culinary Institute. The options left little room for Louisiana influence; however, Hocut has designed a“ beautiful” recipe.
“ It really is her dish,” he says. Culinary instructor J. P. Daigle says a meal like that would cost $ 38 to $ 42 at a restaurant.
Hocut moves with controlled chaos in preparation of the meal, seemingly working on hundreds of tasks but never skipping a beat.
“ She ' s very good,” Cheramie says.“ She can do whatever she wants to in the industry because she ' s got it.”
The contest attracts students from leading culinary schools in the country. Hocut will compete Saturday in the central region, made up of seven other schools: Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Austin, Texas; L ' Ecole Culinarie in St. Louis; Kendall College in Chicago; Delgado Community College in New Orleans; The International Culinary School at The Art Institute of Dallas; Culinary Institute LaNôtre in Houston; and The Culinary Institute of America in San Antonio. Each school selected one student to compete.
Once the regional winner is selected, he or she will advance to the national competition in March in Napa, Calif., where all winners of the five regions will contend for overall champion.
The national winner will receive up to $ 22,000 in prize money, a one-year paid apprenticeship with a celebrity chef and a chance to recreate the winning dish during an extensive media tour.
A December graduate, Hocut was selected following an October contest at Nicholls against 12 other students.
Hocut also was one of the three Nicholls students chosen to study in Écully, France, at the The Institut Paul Bocuse ' s Worldwide Alliance program last summer. She says she ' ll use some of the knowledge she obtained to make a classical French sauce for the duck.
Hocut finished her practice Thursday with more than five minutes left on the clock.“ I feel more prepared, feel secure,” she says.“ I should be good. Hopefully.”