We heard that little sigh of relief when you're easing into a chair. We caught that grimace as you got back up again. We noticed you gravitating towards the booths with that really soft, padded carpet. You can't tell us there aren't more of you gathered around the samples of restorative caffeinated energy drinks than the beverage alcohol exhibitors in the afternoons.
We get it: it's the fourth day of the NRA Show, and there is more to do and see than should reasonably expected of anybody's body.
Do you know who is not pooped? The kids. There are high schoolers and college students and fresh-faced foodservice professionals of every variety taking it all in, sometimes for the first time. To coin a phrase, we believe that children are the future, and we tried to catch some of their contagious energy to help us get through the home stretch.
"I'm excited for everything," Mike Matejzuk, a junior at Wilco Area Career Center in Romeoville, Illinois, and energized for his second NRA Show, told us. "There are even more exciting things happening this year." We caught up with him and his fellow ProStart student Whitney Green as they prepared a shaved fennel and pear salad with Parmesan and an herbed apple glazed chicken with mashed potatoes and butternut squash and sauteed asparagus for a cooking demonstration.
The pair did it faster than it takes us to cook a frozen pizza, thanks to their experience in NRA's ProStart, a two-year career-building program for high school students interested in culinary arts and foodservice management. Their skills were honed while preparing for the Illinois ProStart Student Invitational, a culinary and foodservice management competition (the winners of state competitions got to compete in the National ProStart Invitational in San Diego last month).
This is the first NRA Show for Green, a junior, who will be a grill cook at Prairie Bluff in the fall on his way to fulfilling his dream of becoming a chef. "I'm excited for everything, really," he says. "I'm going to look around and see what I can get into next year." Matejzuk is a senior, currently working at Panera and bound for CIA Hyde Park, thanks in part to his ProStart Certificate of achievement and to scholarships from the NRAEF and CIA.
Matejzuk tells us he's looking to check out world cuisines today as the two are collecting their equipment after their demo. "I should find the dishwasher booth," Green laughed.
You couldn't tell that either had spent the morning schlepping, prepping and cooking. "It's nice to demo first thing, it gets you pumped up for the day," Green said. Matejzuk took off his toque, unveiled his fauxhawk, and bounded towards the south hall to expend some of that youthful energy learning about his industry.
The six demonstrations by ProStart students were just a few of the hourly value presentations at the NRA booth (#6300).
Comments