Hines wins in culinary competition

Pat Hines, sous chef at Mississippi State University, has received a silver medal at Aramark’s Culinary Excellence competition in Tuscaloosa, Ala. Hines was in Rome, Ga., March 23, to compete again, this time with hopes of becoming one of three finalists advancing this summer to a national culinary challenge in Tampa, Fla.

Though she has no formal culinary training, Hines said she began cooking with her mother and grandmother sometime around her fifth or sixth birthday. Now, on any given day in Marketplace at Perry Cafeteria’s “Comfort Station,” she prepares traditional Southern fare for a clientele made up largely of students and others from around the Southeast.

Hines became sous chef last August after working for MSU Dining Services and its successor, the Aramark Corp., for at total of nine years. She and one other sous chef oversee daily production of meals for about 4,000 students, faculty and staff at the university’s historic and primary food service facility.