Seymour Student Wins Healthy Cooking Challenge

Dozens gathered Monday (May 19) at Ansonia’s Molto Bene Italian American Kitchen to celebrate healthy eating in Valley school districts.

The Healthy Cooking Challenge,” organized by VITAHLS, the Valley Initiative to Advance Health and Learning in Schools, pitted the winners of recipe contests in schools from Ansonia, Derby, Shelton, and Derby against each other in a final showdown.

The contestants and their dishes were: 

  • Kiersten LaRue, wonton bowls with buffalo chicken salad,
  • Madysen Miller, broccoli raisin salad,
  • Faith Rousseau, black bean and corn salad,
  • Natalia Wyszkowski, rainbow riot.

Judges for the contest were Ansonia Mayor David Cassetti, Seymour First Selectman Kurt Miller, Shelton Mayor Mark Lauretti, Derby Town Clerk Marc Garofalo, and Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center.

Rousseau, a student at Seymour Middle School, won the contest, and a gift certificate for a free healthy cooking party at Chef’s Equipment Emporium in Orange.

Molto Bene owner Drew Pickering said Rousseau’s salad will also be on the restaurant’s dinner menu Friday and Saturday, served with their fish special. The other three dishes will be on the restaurant’s lunch menu Friday and Saturday.

Employees of the restaurant made the salads for all of the guests and the kids prepared the food using supplies and the restaurant’s kitchen with help from their advisers, Pickering said.

It was a great success,” he said of Monday’s event.

All four contestants received a $20 gift certificate to Massaro Community Farm’s farmstand, a cookbook from Claire’s Corner Copia Restaurant in New Haven, $75 worth of equipment from Chef’s Equipment Emporium, and a personalized apron and certificate.

Click here to read a report on the event from the New Haven Register. 

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