3 Ocean Co. Student Chefs Win Wing Wars At Atlantic Cape

MAYS LANDING, NJ — Three Ocean County women will represent Atlantic Cape Community College’s Academy of Culinary Arts (ACA) program at the upcoming Annual Atlantic City Wing Fest at Golden Nugget Atlantic City Hotel and Casino on Feb. 1.

This year’s event consisted of three teams (two with three students and one with two) that had just one hour to season, cook and/or fry their chicken wings with a uniquely-crafted wing sauce, according to an Atlantic Cape Community College news release. Each team was scored by three judges, who based their final tallies on presentation, creativity, wing taste and sauce taste.

“The Academy of Culinary Arts Wing Wars competition is more than just a culinary showdown, it’s a celebration of skill and creativity in the kitchen. The students do this for bragging rights and the honor to serve their recipe to more than 1,000 guests at Wing Fest,” said Joseph Sheridan, Director of the Academy of Culinary Arts and Hospitality. “As the students hone their culinary skills, they also learn to work as part of a team, and fosters community spirit between student chefs who share ideas, techniques and a common love for the craft of cooking.”

This year’s winning recipe was crafted by an all-female, all-Ocean County resident team. Twin sisters Amy and Danna Jimenez (Culinary) and Alyssa Pietropaolo (Baking & Pastry) cooked up Asian cola wings with a garlic scallion ranch sauce.

“There were five or six other recipes that we wanted to do and this one wasn’t our first choice. Nobody liked it. It was at all the bottom of our lists,” admitted Pietropaolo, a sophomore who resides in Jackson. “The restaurant I work at uses a barbecue root beer sauce, so I was thinking we could do different sodas. We had Pepsi on hand, so we went with that.”

“Then, a friend of mine who is into Asian cuisine, gave us pointers like using yuzu (citrus fruit) and ponzu (made from yuzu juice, soy sauce and more), and to use ginger paste instead of fresh ginger to give it the ginger taste without harshness of ginger,” Pietropaolo said.

Pietropaolo and the Jimenez sisters, who are both sophomores residing in Manahawkin, attended the Ocean County Vocational Technical School in Brick Township for culinary arts while they were in high school. The trio are excited to represent the College and the ACA at Wing Fest.

“We worked really hard on these wings and I think it really paid off, so now we get to represent the school and show off what we can do.”

The runner-up team of first-year culinary majors Devon Devico and Mariah Salamanca created guava barbecue wings with a sweet red pepper mayo sauce. The third-place team also comprised of first-year culinary majors Nicholas Abad, Chase Quintavalle and Samad Steele created tajin cilantro lime wings with a chimichurri ranch sauce.

The ACA was originally invited to participate and represent Atlantic Cape at the annual Wing Fest in 2023. The culinary instructors decided to create a fun and competitive competition between the ACA’s culinary students to come up with the best wing sauce to represent the ACA and the college.

Once at Wing Fest, the winning team must cook wings and make sauce for more than 1,200 attendees.

This year’s volunteer judges were ACA Chef Educator and alumnus Vincent Tedeschi; Atlantic Cape Senior Clerk and ACA alumna Chef Lauren Pavlis; and Cardinal Restaurant Chef/Owner Chef Michael Brennan.

Visit goldennugget.com/atlantic-city-wing-fest for more information on this year’s Atlantic City Wing Fest at Golden Nugget.