Valleyfair

On your marks, get set, cook! Valleyfair partnered with Shakopee High School for the first ever Juicy Lucy Challenge. Students in the Culinary 2 course at SHS competed against each other to create a Juicy Lucy quirky enough to be featured on Valleyfair's Minnesota Eats menu. 

"We wanted to offer students the opportunity to get involved in our event production and learn about all aspects of culinary composition," Skye Spicer, Valleyfair's Catering Manager said. 

To start the partnership, students in the Culinary 2 course took a field trip to Valleyfair where they got to meet with Executive Chef, Dave Whitmer, and Catering Manager, Skye Spicer. Chef Whitmer gave the students a tour of the Valleyfair kitchens and demonstrated how to make a Jucy Lucy burger and a walleye sandwich, two of the principal menu items at Minnesota Eats - Valleyfair's newest food festival. 

"It's great to see students getting excited about creating unique dishes and showcasing their creativity," Whitmer said. 

After the demonstration, students were visited at school by Whitmer and Spicer who helped the teenagers brainstorm, prepare, and cook their culinary creations and provided them with the official instructions for the Juicy Lucy Challenge. 

A week later, students competed against each other to create incredibly unique Juicy Lucys. Autumn Theis, a senior at Shakopee High School, created a Juicy Lucy stuffed with swiss cheese and wrapped in bacon. She topped her invention with a mushroom sauce and caramelized onions. 

Whitmer and Spicer judged the final competition and two students won the privilege to have their invention featured on next year's Minnesota Eats menu. While we can not reveal the winning menu yet, we can tell you that one of the burgers will be savory and sweet and one of the burgers will be spicy and have fried toppings.