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 .”