Kansas City Kansas Community College and the Kansas Speedway are working together to bring a cooking challenge to KCKCC just in time for the 37 Kind Days 250 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at the Kansas Speedway.
The Dr. Thomas R. Burke Technical Education Center is holding a “Cooking Throw Down” featuring Chef Justin and KCKCC students vs. NASCAR driver Johnny Sauter, No. 21 GMS Racing.
The 2016 champion in the Truck Series for GMS Racing, Sauter has 18 career Truck Series victories, finishing no worse than ninth in the points in his eight seasons. Sauter has also raced in the NASCAR XFINITY Series and the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.
During the Cooking Throw Down, each team will have a mystery basket of food with identical ingredients.
They will then have 30 minutes to create a “tailgate style” plate of food that will be judged by a panel of guest judges. All of the ingredients in the basket must be used for the dish, and competitors will have access to a pantry of dry and cold storage items.
The panel will include one judge from NASCAR, one KCKCC judge and guest celebrity judge, Jasper J. Mirabile Jr., of Jasper’s Ristorante in Kansas City.
The Cooking Throw Down will be at 2 p.m. May 10 at KCKCC-TEC. Because of space constraints, it is not open to the public.
“This is a great opportunity for our students to showcase the skills they have learned throughout the program,” said Chef Cheryl Runnebaum, assistant professor of culinary arts at KCKCC. “It will also give them an opportunity to network and expand on communication skills. In addition, this is an excellent way to demonstrate the talent of our instructors and students as well as to showcase our state-of-the-art lab spaces.”