Young cook whisks away award

A Seminole High School senior earns a top prize and a college scholarship in a statewide recipe contest.

By JULIANNE WU

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 24, 2000

SEMINOLE -- As a child, Jessica Massie loved to watch her grandmother, Mary Massie, cook.

"I was Grandma's little taster," she said.

The Seminole High School senior credits her grandmother's memory with inspiring her to win one of two top prizes in the statewide Taste of Florida Recipe Contest, sponsored by Johnson and Wales University in Miami earlier this month.

Jessica Massie, 18, won two trophies, a chef's outfit and a scholarship to Johnson and Wales worth up to $12,000. "I was so scared, because this was the first contest I ever entered," said Massie, who has worked as a prep cook at the Boulevard Bistro in Seminole for about a year. "But once I got in the kitchen, I wasn't nervous at all."

Massie said that before her grandmother died a few years ago, she encouraged her to pursue a career as a chef and restaurant owner.

"Now, I want to fulfill her dream for me," Massie said. "I feel I can honor her that way."

The high school softball-player-turned-cook learned of the contest from Mary Lawrence, her home economics teacher, a few months ago and submitted several recipes.

Recently, she was informed she was one of 10 finalists among 200 applicants in the "Dinner for Four" entree category. There were another 200 entrants in a dessert category. The finalists were asked to prepare their recipes before three judges.

"I tried them out on my family first," she said. "They seemed to like them."

Her family, which resides in Seminole, includes her parents, Dave and Cindy, a sister, Renee, 16, and a brother, Grant, 14.

Massie and her parents traveled to the Miami area for the contest the weekend of April 7 to 9. "The night before I was to cook, I went into the kitchen storage room there to make sure they had all the ingredients I needed," she said.

She brought some yellow tomatoes and avocados along, just in case they didn't supply those.

Massie's prize-winning recipe was for avocado/macadamia nut-crusted mahi mahi with a yucca/boniato mash, a Florida citrus slaw made with ruby red grapefruit, tangerines, oranges, limes, lemons and other ingredients, and a roasted yellow tomato coulis (pronounced COULEE and meaning a warm or cold puree).

"I arrived at 6 a.m. the day I was to cook," she said. She had about 21/2 hours to chop her vegetables, saw the mahi mahi into pieces and line up her cooking utensils, which were provided.

When it was her turn, she said: "I just forgot about being nervous and began to cook."

When she found out she had won in her category, she was elated. "I cried and my parents cried. I never dreamed I would win anything," she said.

Although she has wanted to be a chef since she was a child, the $3,000 annual, renewable scholarship to Johnson and Wales will give Massie a head start. She said she hopes to earn a bachelor's degree in culinary arts.

"If I keep up my grades, the scholarship is good for four years," said the teenage cook, who earns As and Bs at Seminole High.

Massie estimates it will cost about $17,000 a year to attend the culinary university. That includes tuition, uniforms, books and room and board.

"When I heard Jessica won, I was both shocked and proud," said James Shields, her boss and co-owner with Frank Chivas of the Boulevard Bistro. "I helped her with a game plan and gave her a pep talk. I know what it's like. . . . I've been in contests myself."

Shields, a 1994 Seminole High graduate, continued: "Jessica is intelligent and a hard worker. She's got all the potential to work in the restaurant business."

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