Midway High School seniors DQ Carter and Rifka Hacker may not bicker like a married couple in the kitchen, but the marriage of their cultural backgrounds has led them to culinary success.
Carter, who moved to Texas from Barbados in eighth grade, and Hacker, whose family has Persian roots, head to Houston next month to compete in the statewide Aramark Lone Star Chef Competition at Minute Maid Park. They beat seven other Midway teams with their “Garden of Eat In” dish, a Caribbean-inspired chicken rice bowl with a curry-based sauce.
If they win first place, they will receive a $2,500 prize.
Sounds of chicken sizzling in a pan of oil and spices and a knife steadily chopping vegetables filled the Midway High School kitchen Wednesday as the duo practiced for the “Chopped”-style cooking competition. They will compete against 15 other Texas teams from school districts including Sherman, Lewisville, La Vega and Corpus Christi.
With coaching from district executive chef Rudy Frett, Carter and Hacker created their own recipe from scratch, the “Garden of Eat In” dish. Frett timed their practice Wednesday, allotting the pair 30 minutes to recreate their dish in the Midway High School kitchen, which is what they will have to do in Houston but with two “secret” ingredients that will be revealed at the competition.
“It’s really cool seeing them create their own recipe,” said Annette DeFrees, Midway High career technical education teacher. “That was the fun part because they had a vision and then they came through with all the ingredients and made it work, while also making it look nice.”
Poised over a shiny stainless steel food preparation table, Carter and Hacker waited for Frett to start the timer on his iPhone before plunging their gloved hands into the ingredients before them. Carter chopped up a red bell pepper and onion, while Hacker sautéed the already cooked chicken over a gas burner to give it flavor. Frett said the meat in the competition is precooked per safety guidelines.
The goal is to make a meal students actually would want to eat in a school cafeteria and that meets all the nutritional requirements to be served in school, Frett said. The pair’s chicken and rice dish will be added to Midway’s school menu once it is approved by the district.
“It’s really just a way for them to express themselves through food,” Frett said.
After Hacker sautéed the chicken and removed it from the pan, Carter added the chopped bell pepper, onion and jalapenos to the pan to cook. As Hacker measured out spices, she would ask Carter how much of each spice to add or when to start cooking the rice. Carter would look over his shoulder and calmly answer her, each of them letting a laugh slip when they spilled something or reached a roadblock they had not encountered yet.
“They treat each other equally,” DeFrees said, adding that the duo communicates well with each other. “One’s not better than the other.”
The team, dubbed The Rifff Rafffs, served the colorful dish to their coaches, Frett and DeFrees. They both said the curry sauce gave the dish a nice kick but that the chicken was a bit cold. Hacker and Carter discussed how they could cook the chicken later to maintain its temperature. They will practice several more times before the March 29 competition.
“It’s good for them,” DeFrees said. “It helps them build confidence and enables them to cook at home. A lot of people are so scared of cooking. We all make mistakes. That’s part of it. That’s how we learn.”
Hacker and Carter are no strangers to the kitchen. Both have been cooking since they were in the single digits.
“A lot of my family members were always in the kitchen, cooking up Persian food and a lot of different dishes from around the world,” Hacker said. “I remember that growing up, smelling all these different spices.”
By the time she was 10 years old, Hacker knew how to make fried chicken. Carter also expressed an early interest in cooking.
“My mom said the only thing I begged for ever in life was a Rachel Ray cookbook,” he said.
When his family moved from Barbados to Waco, Carter started watching the Food Network and shows like “Chopped” and “MasterChef,” he said. He tries out recipes on the weekends, and his mom is always happy to be his taste-tester.
“For me, it’s a peaceful place,” Carter said. “When I’m in the kitchen, it’s me time. People don’t know who you are, but when you cook they can see who you are. That’s you on a plate.”
Both Carter and Hacker had wanted to participate in the culinary competition before but never found partners. Since this is their senior year, they decided to team up to give it one last shot.
“He and I come from two different backgrounds,” Hacker said. “He comes from a Caribbean background, and I come from a Persian background, so we were very familiar with curry and turmeric and parsley and all these other extravagant spices that probably a lot of American households don’t use.”
Carter added: “She and I work really well together. We don’t bicker at all.”
After graduation, Hacker, who is interested in fashion as well as cooking, plans to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City to study fashion business management. Carter plans to go to culinary school at Texas State Technical College in Waco and may study civil engineering after that.
— WACOTRIB