Meet Juan

Mom Inspires Winning Dish

Culinary student earns silver in Great Culinary Classic

Since he was a little boy, Juan Cifuentes has loved his mom’s creamy chicken with red peppers. It’s his definition of comfort food, and he can still remember when he went away to college, and his mom cooked it for him on the small electric stove in his apartment.

“I don’t think it’s because of the chicken,” Cifuentes said. “It’s just the way my mom prepares it. I love it.”

The culinary student, enrolled at the Hospitality Management Center (HMC) of Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C®), won a silver medal at the recent American Culinary Federation’s Great Culinary Classic, held at HMC. His winning entrée paid homage to his mother and her creamy chicken.

Cifuentes’s dish, which he called Mom’s Love, was a refined take on his mom’s creamy chicken. It featured a whole chicken cooked three ways — roasted, braised and grilled — served over cilantro rice with vegetables and a creamy sauce.

He worked with faculty chefs twice a week for 10 weeks to perfect his recipe and commit his technique and timing to muscle memory. By the time the competition came, he was cool as a cucumber, confidently finishing his dish in the allotted time — maybe even a bit early.

“It’s coming from the grill to the plate, so you have to hope someone eats it pretty quickly because it gets cold as it’s sitting there,” he said.

The competition scrutinizes every aspect of a young chef’s kitchen bearing. They are judged on everything from how they manage the sanitation of their workstation and cut a carrot to the taste and presentation of the final dish.

“There’s a cutting board that’s just for poultry, the yellow one. The green one is just for vegetables, and we have a blue one for fish,” Cifuentes said.

Cifuentes, 39, has a master’s in agricultural productivity, and he ran a successful business in his home country of Guatemala. While visiting his sister in the States, he met a restaurateur who lit a fire in him. He sold his business, secured a student visa with his sister and brother-in-law as sponsors, and enrolled in Tri-C’s Hospitality Management program. He got married in December and credits his wife for essential support. He expects to graduate this fall and hopes to work as a personal chef.

Many other Tri-C students earned awards at the competition.
Dominic Ferris (Silver)
Hannah Sattelmaier (Silver)
Paradise Williams (Silver)
Hannah Cunnigham (Bronze)
Faith Hoffman (Bronze)
Hailey Isabella (Bronze)
Rachel Lake (Bronze)
Samone Portis (Bronze)
Tony Sanchez (Bronze)