DALLAS — Cooking with a cause and a competitive drive. That’s what makes the dynamic duo of Paloma Quiroga and Jeremy Tezano our Class Acts of the Week, brought to you by Time Warner Cable.

Paloma and Jeremy are both juniors at Wilmer-Hutchins High, and they spend their time in the kitchen cooking up a storm. But it’s not just casual dining for these two. They are all over the competitive cooking scene, taking on culinary competitions like the Taste of Dallas this weekend.

“It’s intense.” Paloma said, talking about the competitions. “You get in your own head of thinking, is our dish better than the dish they created. It’s different with completely different dishes.”

Well this particular dish, a chicken parmesan sandwich with banana dipped bites and fresh steamed green beans with local cherry tomatoes, just earned them first place at the Dallas ISD Cooking Up a Change competition! The cooking challenge has students craft a meal that fits nutritional guidelines and hits a budget limit of about a dollar a meal while still tasting great.

On top of it all, the meal will now be served at schools all over Dallas ISD, and the two of them will go onto the national competition in Washington, DC this June.

But while their skills are taking them to DC, cooking is a passion that began at home.

“My mom’s a chef so she always wanted me to do it, but I was kind of like ‘no I don’t want to do it’, but I got the class Freshman year and I’ve been sticking with it, I really like it,” Jeremy said.

Paloma also got her cooking chops from her mom: “For me my mom cooks at home everyday so I just tagged along sometimes and she was like ‘you should try and this’… and I’ve loved it ever since.”

Hey, their tasty talents have already taken them further than they thought, so it doesn’t take much more dreaming to see them rising all the way to the top.

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