Culinary Honour for Rebecca 5th March 2007

Carmel RC College student Rebecca Toppin has just qualified for the finals of FutureChef. This success follows hot on the heels of her recent triumph at the Darlington Schools Master Chef competition with partner Katie Oxley. 

FutureChef is a national competition run by the Springboard Charitable Trust aimed at students between the ages of 12 and 16. It is run nationwide over four stages culminating in the National final at Westminster Kingsway College in London on the 19th March. The competition is now in its sixth year and last year attracted over 5800 competitors.

Rebecca, a student in year 11, has already been successful in the first three stages of the competition and will be one of 11 finalists from across the country taking part in London. To qualify she has had to compete at school, local and regional level, planning, preparing and cooking a variety of dishes to set budgets.

For the final, Rebecca who is described as “having a passion for food” by her teacher Sue Gatenby, will have to prepare and cook a main course and dessert using a specially selected basket of ingredients. She will be judged by a panel of celebrity and renowned chefs who will be focussing on the competitors cooking skills, menu balance, composition, taste & flavour, creativity & presentation, work method and workmanship.

The staff at Carmel entered Rebecca for the competition to give her the opportunity to have her culinary talents recognised and are very proud of her achievement in such a prestigious competition.

Once she has completed her GCSE examinations this summer Rebecca plans to follow a career as a chef and already has a position lined up at The County where she currently works part-time.