When six Kapi'olani Community College culinary students compete in the American Culinary Federation Student Team National Championships in Florida next month, their workspace will be less fancy that the average homeowners' kitchen.

But Team Hawaii, whose coach chef Frank Leake compared their effort to a UH football championship, say they're ready. They've spent seven months together, since enrolling in a new "Competition 1" class at KCC last fall; they've practiced the menu they'll prepare for the last one-and-a-half months. They've prepared fundraising dinners such as one that raised $15,000 at Roy's Restaurant, cooked alongside top chefs here and won the Western Regional gold medal and championship in Seattle last month, the first Hawai'i team to do so.
But in Orlando July 11-13, they won't even have a kitchen.
They'll have a ballroom, a couple of tables, one stove and two ovens (electric — chefs don't "do" electric, as a rule) and some johnnycans of water.
They'll have two chef judges watching their every move, interrupting their concentration with questions, evaluating their knife skills and other techniques. The critique will be so thorough that the judges will empty the garbage cans when the competition is over, checking to see if they threw out anything that could have been used (fish bones for stock, for example).
They'll be up against a time clock with points deducted if they don't make their serving window precisely. And they'll be up against three other teams, all from schools that have been to the nationals before. (These top four were winnowed down from 400 teams at the state levels, Leake said.)
The competition, said recent culinary school graduate Keaka Lee, 23, at a KCC press conference mid-morning Wednesday, "is set up to put us to the test."

"It's not supposed to be fancy," said Tate Nakano-Edwards, 25, second-year student. "It's something I would never have been able to do anywhere else," said Anna Hirono, 20, a second-year student from Japan.
Sixty percent of points will be awarded for taste — the food has to taste great. But timing is also key, as is fabrication and working together smoothly.
It hasn't always been smooth, said second year student Ken Yi, the team's non-cooking member, responsible for logistics. In Seattle, despite constant preparation, they ran into roadblocks that had them staying up all night to prepare a cold platter.
And when it's all over, they don't even get the comfort of an answer. Though they're offered constructive criticism right after the competition, results aren't announced for a full day, a nail-biting time.
Team captain San Shoppell, at 47 the oldest on the team, said the competition teaches much more than cooking. It helps prepare members for life on life's terms.
Said Rena Suzuki, 28, a second-year student: "To be on this team is not just an opportunity as culinarians but an opportunity to grow ourselves as humans."
Chef instructor Alan Tsuchiyama, Leake's partner in preparing the team, said the competition doesn't stop in the classroom — it extends to practicing outside of school, cooking in strange kitchens and learning to do marketing and fundraising.
And they do need to do fundraising. Altogether, from regionals to regionals, the competition is a $100,000 effort, said Leake.
Between June 3 and 24, the team will be preparing practice lunches at the college that the public can attend (call Lynh Hoang, 734-9570 for details). And they're accepting donations at that number, or go to www.uhf.hawaii.edu/KapiolaniCC-ACFGoldTeam.