News-Times Whidbey
SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2013 | Vol. 114, No. 19 | www.whidbeynewstimes.com | 75¢
ahead
Saturday night It’s Daylight Saving Time
County shoots down shooting areas ordinance By JUSTIN BURNETT Staff reporter
Nathan Whalen / Whidbey News-Times
Members of Oak Harbor High School’s Wildcat Catering – comprised of Haley Garden, Joanna Leete, Cahle Williams, Sara Jackson and Rachael Balasa – took first place last weekend in the state ProStart Invitational Culinary Competition hosted by the Washington Restaurant Association. They compete in nationals next month.
Culinary champs OH sending top chefs to national competition
By NATHAN WHALEN Staff reporter
Oak Harbor High School’s culinary arts program hopped beyond the rest of the competition last week with a winning rabbit recipe. The students, part of Wildcat Catering, brought home two state titles from last weekend’s ProStart Invitational Culinar y Competition that was hosted by the Washington Restaurant Association. They won the culinary competition and the restaurant management competition. The culinary team – comprised of Joanna Leete, Haley Garden, Sara Jackson, Rachael Balasa and Cahle Williams, who was an alternate – cooked a meal they had practiced more than 20 times in the months leading up to the state competition. They prepared seared Ahi salad Nicoise with watercress sauce; rabbit three ways, mole sauce, polenta and poached spiced pears;
“We tried to make a menu as diverse and pleasing as possible.” Patrick Salgado, Wildcat Catering
passion fruit panna cotta, white chocolate mousse, almond tuile and passion fruit fettucini. Wildcat Catering was the only team of the 16 competing that prepared rabbit. Jackson said the team wanted to choose a main course that was “out of the box.” “It’s something we haven’t tried before,” Garden added. The team was given one hour to prepare their meal, which they completed with 57 seconds remaining on the time clock. They weren’t allowed to use any electrical items during their preparation. “It’s pretty much everything you do in the real world,” said Scott Fraser, owner of Frasers Gourmet Hideaway. He is also a longtime volunteer at Wildcat
Catering. Balasa said the team worked well and calm as a team while Jackson mentioned the judges struggled to find fault with their meal. “They told us they had to look for stuff to find wrong,” Jackson said. Three members of Wildcat Catering – Robert Clemena, Michelle Lambert and Patrick Salgado – teamed up to develop a restaurant concept and business plan that they presented during the ProStart Invitational. They developed a 10-minute presentation about a restaurant titled “Pacific Rim Tapas.” Clemena described the project as a “fine dining restaurant that emphasizes a friendly group.” Food would be shared in small dishes and shared with people at the table.
“We tried to make a menu as diverse and pleasing as possible,” Salgado said. Clemena described the presentation as “nerve wracking.” They had to memorize the presentation and they couldn’t get a read on the judges impressions while they were speaking. “They all have serious faces and you don’t know what they’re thinking,” Lambert said. The teams are busy finetuning their craft to be ready in time for the national competition April 19-21 in Baltimore. They are also raising money to cover competition costs. Wildcat Catering is hosting a “Baltimore or Bust Dinner” at 5:30 p.m., Sunday, March 24 at the Oak Harbor Elks Club. Cost is $40 per guest. Space is limited so reserve a spot by March 18 by emailing wildcatcatering@ohsd.net or call 279-5760 for more information.
A controversial proposal to clear the way for no-shooting rules in Island County was shot down this week. On Wednesday, Republican Island County commissioners Kelly Emerson and Jill Johnson refused the pleas of Democrat Commissioner Helen Price Johnson to continue the discussion at a later meeting. Instead, they opted to kill the unpopular proposal once and for all. The hot button issue, was under debate since last summer. It again drew a large crowd this week, including a TV news crew. While most in attendance were critics of the proposal, a few supporters were sprinkled among the audience. “To say we’re disappointed is an understatement,” said Jack Lyons, a resident of Norcliffe. Norcliffe, Sea View and Tilbury residents sparked the creation of the controversial proposal last year when they signed a petition and asked the county commissioners to ban shooting in their community. One of their neighbors has a firing range on his property, and they told the commissioners they believe it’s a safety risk. The board declined to approve the request outright but agreed to begin drafting standards that communities would need to meet before the commissioners will consider shooting bans in their areas. Lyons and other residents assisted in the process, volunteering hundreds of hours of their time. They examined the codes of all 39 counties in the state and said they found that 22 already have similar rules in place for denselypopulated areas.
The proposal stalled late last year in the wake of a public outcry against it, and because the plan’s primary sponsor, former Commissioner Angie Homola, was unseated by Johnson. The issue was slated to be discussed again Wednesday but was put on the table two days ahead of schedule. Emerson, a critic of the proposal, was running Monday’s meeting and made a surprise request to settle the issue that day. Emerson said the intent was to not to waste any more time on a proposal supported by “only one board member.” The county doesn’t have resources to administer the new rules, she said, adding the population base on Whidbey or Camano islands doesn’t justify their creation. “I would be willing to table this item indefinitely until a time in which changes in the demographics of the area show more of a need for this,” Emerson said. Helen Price Johnson, the board’s chairwoman at the time and the sole remaining supporter of the proposal, was out of town and was unable to join the meeting by telephone as planned. Though the room was filled with property rights and Second Amendment advocates who were highly critical of the draft rules, Johnson didn’t support Emerson’s request for an early vote for reasons of public trust. Johnson said she believes the proposal “goes too far in addressing a particular neighborhood’s concerns” and that the county already has an elected public safety See guns, A24