This pint sized chef is a finalist in a K-12 National Cooking Competition. Audrey Creighton is one of five finalists in this nationwide competition that will air on July 28 (12p ET) via livestream.
This Oakwood resident got the cooking bug during the pandemic, when she found a cookbook created by her Great Grandmother. There were over 200 old school Italian recipes and Audrey challenged herself to make 50 of them. And she did, from crab meat tortellini, biscotti, lasagna and 47 more meals. Her large family also loved this challenge as they got to enjoy the end results. Audrey also launched a website to document the meals she was making.
After making it through her first challenge, she decided to use her family travels to inspire her further, taking on new cuisines. She calls this her Bon Voyage challenge and explains, “I choose a place that I have traveled to and then, I choose a dish I had there and I recreate it!” She was able to take a cooking class in Spain, treated her mom to a pasta class for Mother’s Day and attended some local nosh-ups for more ideas. Her father, Sean Crieghton says what impresses him the most about Audrey’s cooking is her calm demeanor in the kitchen and admits she is indeed the best cook in the family. Her favorite thing to cook is salmon and she explains, “its because there are so many ways to infuse flavor into it.” She’s even experimented with some molecular gastronomy making chocolate noodles, vinegar pearls and balsamic lemon foam. She says her favorite restaurant is Nanyea, the Ethiopian eatery on North Dixie.
As part of her virtual schooling, her counselor suggested she enter the Virtual Cooking Competition put on by Stride. She was one of five chosen and the youngest to advance to the finals which will air this Wednesday. Here are the rules she has to follow:
Competitors will have 30 minutes to create a meal for one using this list of ingredients + any pantry staples:
– at least one green ingredient
– an ingredient that starts with a “C”
– an ingredient from the freezer
– a source of protein
– at least three spices that are not salt or pepper
Let’s all tune in and wish her well! And hope we’ll be lucky enough to have her cook for us someday. You can keep up with her cooking by subscribing to her newsletter. But Audrey insists this is just a hobby, her career goals are to become a lawyer and then a Senator.
