The 2022 ACF Student Chef of the Year Award Winners // By John Bartimole

2022 ACF Student Chef of the Year Lindsay Peck, CC, Utah Valley University

Chef Lindsay Peck’s love of food came directly from the love that permeated her family’s dinners.

“Most important to me was having dinner together as a family,” she says. “To me, that was what made me love food — having dinner together. It was how we bonded, how we showed love.”

That fascination with food was only heightened by her affinity for a popular cable TV network.

“In my mid-teens, I started watching the Food Network, and I was absolutely blown away,” she says. “I watched these great dishes being created seemingly out of nowhere. I was hooked.”

Named the ACF 2022 Student Chef of the Year at the National Convention in Las Vegas in July last year, Chef Peck says she was “always fascinated” by food and the shows on the network — even though that didn’t translate immediately into a career path in culinary arts.

“My parents were very supportive of my life plans as I was deciding what to do. For a while, I wanted to go into marine biology — how much farther away from culinary arts can that be?” she says with a laugh. “But, after a while, I realized what I really liked was the idea of living on the ocean, not marine biology itself. I still love science, and when you think about it, the culinary arts really is a science.”

Chef Peck says she didn’t really know she would be going to culinary school until “about three months before the actual deadline” to apply. But, she says, when she was asked what she wanted to do with the rest of her life, the choice came into focus.

“I baked a lot as a teenager; I actually helped cater some wedding receptions and made some wedding cakes,” she says. “I always loved to learn from my dad, who also loves to cook.”

After graduating from Utah Valley University’s culinary program, Chef Peck is currently working under the tutelage of ACF 2022 Chef of the Year Michael Shannon, CEC, at Boston’s Somerset Club, which traces its history to the mid-1800s. Already, Chef Peck has distinct plans laid out for her future — and that path was forged during her attendance at the ACF National Convention, where she was honored with her award.

Coincidentally, both the ACF Chef of the Year and Pastry Chef of the Year, Culinary Specialist First Class Petty Officer Danielle Hughes and Culinary Specialist Chief Petty Officer Troy Matthew Shaw, respectively, are in the U.S. Coast Guard; Chef Peck met both of them during the convention, where they were also honored. After learning about the Coast Guard’s culinary program, Chef Peck says she’s been seriously exploring that route.

“When I talked with them and they told me about the culinary opportunities available in the Coast Guard, I was both interested and impressed,” she says. “I love the ocean, I love to traveI, I love culinary — and this could be a golden opportunity to combine all of those loves into one career.”

For now, however, Chef Peck continues to hone her skills with Chef Shannon, and she plans to enter another compeition. “I still have so much to learn, especially the technical side of cooking,” she says. “Working with him is like being in culinary grad school. He’s teaching me so much, even about things such as menu planning and design.”

Despite her early accomplishments, Chef Peck remains humble about her skills. “Even during the competition, I never thought I was better than anyone else,” she says. “I did put a lot of work into the competition; I came up with 21 recipes, working with Chef (Todd) Leonard, CEC, the 2018 ACF Chef of the Year, to create absolutely delicious dishes. We worked around the clock to come up with those recipes.”

A recent culinary graduate, ACF Chef Sarrenity Dickson, CC , already has a busy but enjoyable life that has provided her with accolades for her baking prowess and a career that she says only recently came into focus during high school and college.

“When I was young, I baked all the time with my mom and grandma, and then it was just me doing most of the baking,” she says. “And though I loved to bake, I never thought it would become a career for me. At that time, I didn’t consider it a job option at all. I didn’t really realize the opportunity existed until I was out of high school and halfway through college.”

Slowly and as steadily as yeast causes dough to rise, the prospect of a career in culinary began to grow and take shape.

“I went to college at Utah Valley University, where I majored in education and math. I joined a dinner group and really enjoyed cooking, and the people in the group told me I was excellent at it. I then found out that UVU had a culinary major, so I thought I could double major. But then I discovered I liked culinary much more than I liked math,” she says with a laugh.

Unfortunately for Chef Dickson and millions of other students across the country, COVID-19 severely limited options as the importance of social distancing eliminated most in-person opportunities, including competitions.

“Even though I was a culinary major, we couldn’t do competitions because of COVID,” she says. “Finally, I was able to enter a school competition at UVU, where my cake earned me a bronze medal. That’s when my competition journey really took off.”

Chef Dickson, whose father died in February last year, said that he, her mom and her mom’s husband were all very supportive of her culinary ambitions — and very appreciative of her talents. “I enjoy that. When I get together with my mom and her husband, we make coffee and have some of my cookies,” she says. “I could bake cookies all day, thousands of them. It doesn’t matter what they are — from fancy French cookies to regular chocolate chip cookies, I love to bake them all.”

Today, Chef Dickson continues to hone her craft at an assisted living facility — and she’s loving every minute of it, baking desserts for the residents for lunch and for dinner, and also serving as the culinary assistant manager of the facility.

“I derive so much joy from the people living here,” she says. “Let’s face it — almost everyone has a sweet tooth, and I look forward to giving the residents something sweet twice a day!”

Chef Dickson, who currently resides in Provo, Utah, plans to stay in the culinary industry for the long haul. “This is my career for life.”

Classical

Chef Josh Wasky, CSC, CWPC, sous chef at the Roanoke Country Club in Roanoke, Virginia, fell in love with barbecue and pulled pork when he was a kid growing up in southern Maryland. “My parents took me to a barbecue restaurant for my fifth-grade graduation and it was life-altering for me,” says Chef Wasky, who’s been smoking his own meats for many years as a chef and has even participated in barbecue competitions. For his signature pulled pork , he starts with a bold rub blending spices like paprika, chili powder and a “good amount of black pepper,” and then smokes the meat strictly with cherrywood and applewood (no charcoal) in a reverse-flow trailer smoker outdoors for about eight hours. He sprays the pork with a touch of water every so often to help the smoke flavor “bind” to the meat and provide moisture. He serves the pork with the usual fixings: collard greens, homemade French fries, tangy coleslaw and cornbread.

Modern

For a modern version, Chef Wasky extracts the “money muscle” cut from the pork shoulder. He slices it into semi-thin chunks and tops it with pickled mustard seeds and pickled red onion, setting it all atop a cherry-bourbon gastrique. The super tender cut also gets paired with some crispy barbecue-spiced kale chips; a little caviar-topped rounded pommes soufflé for an elegant riff on the fries; a dollop of a bacon fat-egg white emulsion; and some bright green kale puree for color. “In most barbecue competitions, your pork box will have three different styles: the pulled pork, the chunks of meat on the bone and the money muscle you can slice thin for a super tender cut,” Chef Wasky says. Whether served classically or modernized, “It’s a goal of mine to make barbecue more available here in Southwest Virginia.”

For recipes, visit wearechefs.com .