SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The bread bowls are freshly baked.

The Arctic char is fully encrusted with sesame seeds; the chicken cacciatore sauce is strained to an appropriate viscosity; the bruschetta appetizer cups are carefully arranged, waiting to be sprinkled with soft goat cheese; the homemade French vanilla ice cream is chilling in the freezer.

Sir John Franklin students Katrina Heimbach, left, Chelsea Comeau and Michaelis Hurst strain chicken cacciatore sauce in preparation for the seven-course meal they cooked as part of a Skills Canada cooking program. - Katie May/NNSL photo

As five student chefs gather in the Sir John Franklin high school kitchen for a pre-dinner huddle, they discuss the importance of non-wilted spinach and strawberry salad. They've still got to chill the plates, but they're cutting it close. Less than 30 minutes remain until the "amuse-bouche," the first taste of their seven-course meal, is served to a hungry crowd of 40 friends and family members.

"We should've thought about that earlier," head chef Travis Stewart tells the teens.

But it's not a big deal. He wants to keep them calm.

"We're going to set everything up like an assembly line so it goes nice and simple," says Stewart, the technical chair of the NWT Skills Canada cooking program that brought these five students together a few months ago.

When they began the program, Chelsea Comeau, Greg Crews, Katrina Heimbach, Michaelis Hurst and Emily Stang started out cooking rice and vegetables and learning how to tell when the chicken's done.

Now's their chance to put their gourmet skills to use - the chicken they're about to serve to their guests is tender enough to "melt in your mouth," as Comeau exclaims after plucking a sample from the pan.

The meal took a total of 18 hours to prepare from scratch, cook and serve. The team started preparations for the meal last Thursday evening and worked in the kitchen from 9 a.m. to nearly 10 p.m. on Saturday. So why did the teens spend a beautiful summer weekend slaving over hot stoves?

"It's fun," Comeau, Heimbach and Hurst exclaim in unison.

The girls watch Hell's Kitchen, a reality cooking show, but they say the Sir John Franklin kitchen is not as stressful as its TV counterpart, even when they're under pressure like right now.

"I've worked in restaurants where it's like, the pressure's on. No one talks," says Hurst as she helps strain the cacciatore sauce.

But that's definitely not the case with their group, says Comeau."We talk all the time, about everything," she says. "We have our quarrels, our little fights, our little cat fights sometimes, but then we laugh about it," she continues as the others nod.

"It's fun to be here." But she adds, "If anything goes wrong, you're basically screwed."

Luckily, there were no major mishaps.

Richard Toll, the second chef guiding the students, says he's seen them improve a lot over the last few weeks.

"Oh, good gosh, yes, they've come a long way," he laughs. "Cooking is very much about confidence."

Crews and Stang, both Grade 12 students, are confident enough to want to go to culinary school after they graduate high school.

"I've been cooking for quite a while but I've only looked at it as a career for the last two to three years," says Stang. "I love baking bread. It's therapeutic." But she adds, "Decorating cakes, I find that stressful. I just have to get it absolutely perfect."

As for Stang's brother, Micah, his job wasn't so sweet. The Grade 11 student volunteered to wash dishes for the chefs to earn his community volunteer hours. A seven-course meal for 40 people equals hundreds of dirty dishes.

"I'll be washing dishes for 12 hours," he sighs.