'They have all changed their lives to be a part of this team'

COOS BAY, Ore. (AP) — They live together. They work together. But sometimes these world-class chefs forget to eat together.

The youth culinary team that will represent the USA in the culinary equivalent of the Olympics in Germany in October is from Coos Bay.

The six chefs, led by Oregon Coast Culinary Institute instructor Randy Torres, have worked more than two years perfecting a series of dishes they hope will sweep the international judges away.

"The only way we are going to lose this is if we let ourselves," Edalyn Garcia said. "We've all worked too hard, fought too hard and gone through too many sleepless nights."

The American Culinary Federation chooses the nation's youth culinary team — chefs 25 and younger — in a competition every four years. In 2010, the Coos Bay team won the right to represent America at the 2012 Internationale Kochkunst Ausstellung — International Culinary Exhibition — in Erfurt, Germany.

For two and a half years, they've been planning, practicing and reworking the intricate routine that, they hope, will prepare a gold-medal dinner for 90 diners — including the four to six judges — in five hours.

"Sometimes you'll spend months trying to make something work," Garcia said.

When they arrive in Germany this October, there will be no more preparing, no more practicing.

"Two and a half years is boiled down into one point," Garcia said.

Each chef graduated from a culinary school — some from OCCI, others from schools in California — more than a year ago and has stayed in Coos Bay to be part of this team. Several of them have already competed internationally. But they all work as full-time chefs somewhere in Coos County, several at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort.

"They have all changed their lives to be a part of this team," Torres said.

Practice for the competition must be squeezed into their free time: early mornings, late nights and sometimes overnight. Each dish on the team's menu is made again and again — sometimes to experiment with different methods or ingredients, sometimes to perfect old ones. Sleep is snatched when possible, and friends don't exist outside of the team and coworkers. In fact, several of the teammates room together in a house.

"All I think about is food, and I forget to eat," Garcia said. "It consumes me more than I will ever consume it."

Garcia said the unremitting stress has taught her to take joy in small victories. She remembers crying when a new set of molds arrived that would make a dish even more beautiful.

That focus is shared by all the teammates.

"A special knife... is something that means so much to you," Reilly Meehan said. "I get chills when something I made turns out perfect."

The competition is broken into two days. On day one, the team will have five hours to make 90 portions of a cold vegetable appetizer and a hot entree.

On day two, they'll prepare the food again, but this time it's not for eating. Presented cold and preserved in gelatin, it'll be judged based on appearance, smell and the display's artfulness.

Though the menu is secret, Team USA's hot entree highlights the bounty of the Oregon coast, Torres said.

Each team member has a particular set of strengths and weaknesses in the kitchen, which they've taken into account in planning their five-hour preparation. Laura Williams has a talent for making crackers. Meehan has a knack for pastries. Both those items accompany the cold vegetable entree so most of their work is done before the work on the hot meal begins. As serving time draws near and the other chefs glide in figure-eight patterns between cutting, frying and plating the hot items, Williams and Meehan stand to the side arranging their foods artfully on the plate.

Alfonso Mendoza mans the stove and oven, tossing vegetables over flames and passing pans of fish. Garcia switches between mixing sauces, simmering other fish and plating the hot foods.

All eyes are focused down on the food before them. The team works in silence, except when a chef shouts out that something is finished, or something is needed.

Compared to the stress of balancing such trainings, outside employment and a personal life, the real competition "is easier to a certain degree," Mendoza said. "There all the focus is on the food."

Once the competition ends, the chefs plan to scatter to jobs all over the country. Mendoza hopes to be a chef at a four-star restaurant, with resources and a customer base. Others hope to run their own restaurants.

But for now, they're completely absorbed in the challenge they've taken on together.

Cooking "is our life," Meehan said. "It makes us feel like if we can do this, we can do anything."

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.