When six Kapi'olani Community College culinary students compete in the American Culinary Federation Student Team National Championships in Florida next month, their workspace will be less fancy than yours at home.

But Team Hawaii members, whose coach, chef Frank Leake, compared their effort to preparing for a University of Hawai'i football championship, says they're ready after seven months together and winning the Western Regional gold medal and championship in Seattle last month, the first Hawai'i team to do so.

Still, in Orlando July 11-13, they won't even have a kitchen.

They'll have a ballroom, a couple of tables, one stove and two ovens (electric — not popular with chefs) and containers of water.

They'll have two judges interrupting their concentration with questions and evaluating their skills as they work. It's a critique so thorough that the judges will empty the garbage cans to see if the team wasted anything (fish bones that could become stock, for example).

They'll be up against a time clock, with points deducted if they don't make their serving window.

And they'll be up against three other teams, all from schools that have been to the nationals before.

The competition, said recent culinary school graduate Keaka Lee, 23, at a KCC press conference Wednesday, "is set up to put us to the test."

And the competition kit-chen is purposely "not supposed to be fancy," said Tate Nakano-Edwards, 25, a second-year student.

Sixty percent of points will be awarded for taste. But timing is also key, as is fabrication and working together smoothly, said chef-instructor Alan Tsuchiyama.

Team captain San Shoppell, at 47 the oldest on the team, said the competition teaches much more than cooking. It helps prepare members for life on life's terms.

Said Rena Suzuki, 28, a second-year student: "To be on this team is not just an opportunity as culinarians, but an opportunity to grow ourselves as humans."

"It's something I would never have been able to do anywhere else," said Anna Hirano, 20, a second-year student from Japan.

Perhaps the team's biggest challenge is outside the kitchen: fundraising to defray competition costs.

From Wednesday to June 24, the team will practice on the public, serving lunches at the college (call Lynh Hoang, 734-9570 for details, reservations). And they're accepting donations at that number or at www.uhf.hawaii.edu/KapiolaniCC-ACFGoldTeam.