On Wednesday, March 14, local chefs gathered at Roosevelt Senior High School in DC's Petworth neighborhood for a student cooking competition hosted by Stay Hungry, competition that fuses food and hip hop. It works like this:  Students choose a hip hop lyric, then prepare a dish that was inspired by that lyric. The Stay Hungry competition initiative was designed to give inner city students the opportunity to work great ingredients with step-by-step instruction and coaching from professional chefs. The coaching chefs for the DC event included Chef Adam Greenberg (Coconut Club), Chef Rabia Kamara (Ruby Scoops), Chef Duan Samuels (Private Chef), Chef Meshach Cicero (Prequel) and Simone Jacobson (Toli Moli). We followed up with Chef Adam Greenberg about his experience. Turmeric Ginger Chicken Noodle 🍲 #today I had the pleasure of coaching high school students competing in @yostayhungry @roosevelthsdc !! Maddd fun... this is what it's all about. #chefduan @yostayhungry @roosevelthsdc @rubyscoopsic @kissthech3f @mrcheffito @chefcisero

EDC: How did you hear about this event?

Chef Adam: Simone Jacobson from Toli Moli asked me to be a judge for DC's Stay Hungry event. Stay Hungry is an organization that brings hip-hop and food together.

EDC:  What did the Stay Hungry mean to you?

Chef Adam:  I always get a lot of pleasure out of using my platform to help kids. I’ve learned so many valuable life lessons through the industry. I truly believe it can help give kids some life skills and it helps teach them to work together with others.

EDC:  Anything that surprised you?

Chef Adam:  I was really surprised by the level of enthusiasm the kids had for learning about food. The live performances from some kids were great, you could see their passion. All we need to do is give these kids positive feedback and an environment that allows them to  thrive. You see that glimmer in their eye when they get compliments.

We had a few more questions so we followed up with the event organizer, Syreeta Gates.

EDC: What were some of the inspiration lyrics?

Syreeta Gates: As an example the lyric "And get riced up, some Japanese baby salmon." by Raekwon with Chef JR (Kitchen Cray) team made a salmon dish. Chef Duan's team had the lyric "Make these Hittas* sick, chicken noodle soup" by Shy Glizzy which inspired a numeric ginger noodle soup.

Other lyrics for the event included:

You can learn more about the Stay Hungry organization here. This is the very reason why I took the leap of faith of this year and followed my passion, to be to share it and inspire it with as many people as possible. I got that opportunity to do it today with a bunch of young inspiring culinary geniuses. I was suppose to coach them, but in reality that taught me a lot today. I led a winning team today! Shoutout to the @yostayhungry team for the opportunity.

Chef Adam: It’s a cliche, but I always get more out of these experiences than the kids do. It opens my eyes to how much more I can do, and if I can get through to one kid, I feel like I’m helping make their lives better. This is what it's all about. 2nd Place Finish!!These students showed me how much love and passion comes from learning and having fun. Everyone came from a different background and we use all that diversity to come up with the dish today. Sharing my knowledge with them made my heart melt. Thanks to #teamawesome @yostayhungry @roosevelthsdc #chefduan (SwipeLEFT) @mrcheffito working with the kids at Roosevelt Senior High School sharing his passion with the youth! @yostayhungry thanks for having us we had a blast teaching the young men and women a few culinary techniques. #yostayhungry #kitchencray #love #dcornothing
[{"document_url": "http://edibledc.com/stories/on-the-road-cooking-competition-comes-local-high-school", "unformatted_src": "https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57054b9f20c647bbe83aefc9/t/5b50f4f588251b0febdf3e32/1532032257841/Tomato2.jpg", "src": "https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57054b9f20c647bbe83aefc9/t/5b50f4f588251b0febdf3e32/1532032257841/Tomato2.jpg", "formatted_filename": "Tomato", "alt_text": "Tomato2.jpg"}, null, null, {"document_url": "http://edibledc.com/stories/on-the-road-cooking-competition-comes-local-high-school", "unformatted_src": "https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57054b9f20c647bbe83aefc9/t/5aabe8a3575d1f0edf0f003e/1521215662253/STAYHUNGRY-7632.jpg", "src": "https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57054b9f20c647bbe83aefc9/t/5aabe8a3575d1f0edf0f003e/1521215662253/STAYHUNGRY-7632.jpg", "formatted_filename": "STAYHUNGRY", "alt_text": " Photo by KaTisha Smittick "}, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null]