Brye Forbes, a 2008 Athens High School graduate, stands with Ernesto Rivera at the National SkillsUSA competition in Louisville, Kentucky. The Wallace State student and Decatur chef is the silver-medal winner in the culinary division.

Athens High School graduate Brye Forbes sliced, prepped and cooked her way to a silver medal in the culinary arts division at the National SkillsUSA Leadership and Skills Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, last week.

Forbes earned a place at the national competition after winning a gold medal at the State SkillsUSA competition last December.

During the national contest, Forbes went up against 27 of the country’s best post-secondary culinary students, creating a four-course meal in four hours using off-the-wall ingredients like Belgium endive and parsnips.

Working under the scrutiny of a panel of judges, she drew inspiration for the dishes she prepared from her years at The RailYard in Decatur and her classes at Wallace State Community College in Hanceville, where she is a part-time culinary arts student. For months, Forbes and her chef instructor practiced for the competition, experimenting with different combinations of unusual ingredients.

“I needed that practice,” said Forbes, who also works part-time at Whisk’D Cafe in Decatur. “It brought me up a level. Without it, I would have been going into something I wouldn’t have been prepared for.”

Instead, she said her experience and the numerous hours she spent practicing left her feeling pretty confident when the final buzzer sounded.

According to the SkillsUSA website, competing chefs are rated for their organization, knife skills, cooking techniques, creative presentation, sanitation, food safety technique and above all, quality and flavor.

Forbes seemed to excel in all of these areas by coming in second and edging out students from some of the top culinary schools in the nation.

A chef’s journey

Forbes discovered her passion for food in her teen years, when she took a job as a salad bar attendant at the Ruby Tuesday in Athens.

“After working the salad bar a couple of years, I moved into the kitchen to work with the big men,” Forbes said. “That’s when I decided I wanted to make food.”

Over the last eight years, Forbes has held just about every kitchen position out there, working at restaurants ranging from Mexican cuisine to Southern meat-and-threes. In 2013, she settled into a position at The RailYard, known then as Back Alley Bistro, where she met executive chef Bill Harden.

“Ever since I’ve been with him, my interest in food has skyrocketed,” she said. “He was in tears when he heard that I had done so well at the competition.”

Forbes fears cookery is a dying art, because more and more people are buying pre-made, tasteless meals filled with chemicals and preservatives.

“Preparing food for people sounds super simple, but it’s not,” she said. “One of the reasons I am working toward becoming an executive chef is so I can feed people real, nutritious food.”

Winning silver is all well and good, according to Forbes, but she has already set her sights on next year’s national competition, where she plans on taking home gold.

After graduating from Wallace State, Forbes hopes to either open up a fine dining food truck or start her own catering business.