NLHS Students Get A Slice of Life

students in Traci Planinshek’s Thursday culinary arts class got a taste of what it might be like to compete on Top Chef. As cameras rolled, they scurried around the kitchen chopping vegetables, stirring sauces, grating cheese and marinating chicken in a contest to see who could make the best pizza.

Seated at the judge’s table at the Whaler Café were Chef Luigi Sferrazza; High School Principal William Tommy Thompson; Rosario Cacciatore, owner of Pizza Place in Westerly, RI; food aficionado , a New London attorney; and Dominic Piacenza, another attorney from New London who loves pizza so much he installed a dome-topped wood-fired brick pizza oven in his backyard.   

The seniors and juniors in Planinshek’s class had been well-schooled in the fine art of pizza making. Sferrazza had given them a primer in pizza the week before and demonstrated how to make and twirl the dough, although Planinshek said she drew the line at the students trying that particular technique during the pizza cook-off.

“I’d have dough stuck to the walls and there’d be no pizza!” she said.

Most of the students have been in Planinshek’s class for at least two to three years, however, so they know their way around the kitchen. Planinshek said she came up with the idea for the cook-off because, “all high school kids love pizza and they love competitions.”  

The students were divided into five teams, each of which had to come up with a unique pizza. The best of which will be featured as a weeklong special at the Recovery Room. The pizzas were judged on taste, creativity, and appearance--and the judges certainly had their work cut out for them.

Team Chivo (which means goat in Spanish) came up with a corn, chorizo, goat cheese and avocado pizza. Eleventh-grader Nathalee Hilario said they opted for that recipe because they thought it was something “no one else would think of.”

Team Ohdee made a chicken alfredo pizza. Tatitina Smith said she came up with that idea because she had a craving for chicken alfredo as the team was trying to decide what to make. Team Whoo Blue Cheese served up a Creole pizza with okra, shrimp, cheese, onions, peppers and tomatoes. “We found it online,” said Kayla Williams. “We wanted to make something different.”

Although Jabril Johnson Jr. admits that personally his favorite pizza is plain cheese, his team Oh Say That offered something a lot spicier with a pizza topped with teriyaki chicken and bacon. Last, but certainly not least, the one team that didn’t come up with a catchy name made a hot and spicy grilled orange chicken pizza topped with cilantro. “We looked up ideas online and we all voted on this one,” said high school senior Laura Bonneau.

As the judges tallied their scores, most of the pizzas were just three points apart. “It was a very hard decision for us,” said Cacciatore. In the end, however, there could be only one winner and the no-name team won it in a three-to-two vote.

“I thought the grilled orange chicken was outstanding,” said Thompson. “I think they knocked it out of the park.”

You don’t have to take Thompson’s word for it, though. You can try it yourself. The orange chicken pizza will be on the menu at the Recovery Room all this week. That’s not the only place that will be serving the students' pizzas, either.

Cacciatore was so impressed by the teriyaki chicken offered by team “Oh Say That,” he decided to run it as a special this week at the Pizza Place in Westerly too. Third place went to team Whoo Blue Cheese’s creole pizza, which Cacciatore and Sferrazza both decided to run as a three-day special at their restaurants.    

“It was awesome,” said Sferrazza. “I was very impressed by everybody’s.”