The "Troy"

 Troy and I sautéing onions

Immediately after my appearance on the Daily Buzz my parents and I hopped in the car and headed back home to Boca Raton. Why? Because there was a competition being held at West Boca High School. My school is a “hybrid", which means it’s a traditional High School but also has four academies (Culinary is one of them). Advising the school on how to run the academies is CAAB (Community Academy Advisory Board) which is made up of business leaders from throughout Palm Beach County. To help bring attention to the Academy Program the school organized its first ever “Top Chef” competition. Chef Hall (the head of the Culinary Academy) selected 10 culinary students who were then matched with a member of the ”CAAB” to be their apprentice. I was paired with Troy McLellan the President of the Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce which represents over 1,500 companies. This everyday executive might know all about business and politics but when it comes to cooking he knows “squat”. Troy sent me an email telling me that he would gladly be my partner for the competition but warned me he didn’t know much about cooking, but that was about to change, he was now paired with JeremyCooks.

The Buzz!

As soon as I got the news I did a “happy dance”, I was going to be on LIVE National television. Not just any live television show, I was going to be on The Daily Buzz, a Nationally Syndicated Television show broadcast Live to more then 160 markets and over 2.3 million viewers. It’s different then the “Today Show” or “Good Morning America”, on the “Buzz” they’re always cracking jokes and just having a fun time (on and off the air), their catch phrase is “Morning News - Morning Fun“. The small problem we had was that I had less then a week to prepare! What was I going to make and how would I rehearse!!!!

 Getting "Psyched up" Last minute check of everything