Two West Essex students taste victory at the Pomptonian Food Service contest

Photo courtesy of Michael DelaPaz

West Essex students, senior Alex Bejjani and junior Ella Mesopotanese, competed in the Pomptonian competition.

Pomptonian Food Services hosted its sixth Annual Healthy School Lunch Challenge on March 7. With senior Alexander Bejjani as the competition’s first-place winner and junior Ella Mesopotanse in second place, each of the students showcased their skills in the live cookoff, turning locally sourced ingredients into nourishing meals. 

For Mesopotanese and Bejjani, cooking means making memories with their families and friends and sharing their stories through food with others. Although Mesopotanese doesn’t come from a long line of chefs in her family, she takes influence from her grandmother and reminisces about cooking with her when she was a kid. Being the oldest of eight younger cousins, Mesopotanese spends time cooking for them to help develop her dish, trying to think of what a young student might want to eat at their school. 

“The theme of the competition was that food connects us,” Mesopotanese said. “Getting to cook for other people and having people eat your food is the best part.”

With a Russian mom and Lebanese dad, Bejjani learned to love and incorporate both cuisines in his creations. He began cooking during quarantine, spending his free time every day learning new recipes and techniques. He started making his own recipes and created an Instagram account (@chef_alex_b) where he posts his dishes. Bejjani’s family encouraged him to start catering and share his love for food with others. 

“I think food is a vehicle to bring people together,” Bejjani said. “Recipes are passed down through family. It can be an excuse for people to invite friends that they haven’t seen in a long time to a dinner party. It’s a great way to share your own story, and for the people eating, it’s a great way to bond and communicate.” 

When Chef Robert Eckert was a high school student at  Morris County School of Technology, he competed in this competition and is excited for Mesopotanese and Bejjani to have this opportunity. 

“Chef Del and myself have structured our classes so that the students could be chameleons,” Eckert said. “I mean this in the sense that we could take our graduates and place them in any entry-level kitchen, and they would succeed. So when Alex and Ella were selected, I had no doubt that they would do well.”

Mesopotanese’s quesadilla featuring tomato-apple salsa and tomato-mexican rice and  Bejjani’s Lebanese beef and tomato zucchini boats with quinoa and apple salad will be featured on the West Essex cafeteria menu.

Mesopotanese hopes to pursue culinary professionally through baking and would like to open her own bakery in the future. While Bejjani doesn’t plan on pursuing cooking professionally in the future, he hopes to continue cooking for his friends and family and share his dishes online. Whether they use their experience for professional cooking or in other fields, both have learned how to adapt quickly to challenges in the kitchen and work among other chefs to create culinary masterpieces. 

“I hope they gained a feel for what the industry lies ahead,” Eckert said. “I feel that after competing, you see the standards set by the industry and realize that what you gain from culinary is all applicable to real skills used in real life.”