When the plate came out of the kitchen at Vancouver Community College, the judges immediately spotted a winner. Each of the three scalloped-edged, fennel-stuffed ravioli topped a single perfect scallop; garnishing each scallop was a miniature still life comprising a single leaf of parsley, an asparagus tip, and a small bead of tomato concassé. The three little assemblages sat in a pool of asparagus beurre blanc, its green-yellow the colour of spring. "If it tastes as good as it looks..." said one judge, a professional chef. It did.

The main course spoke the same classy but flavourful language. Of the Cornish hen (the mandatory focal point for the main course), emerging chef Scarlet Gaffney had made a confit with herbs and shallots, then pulled the meat off, tossed it with demi-glace, and topped it with tomato jam. "That was the first element," she says as we sit outside at a café just off Main Street. Others were a parsnip-and-carrot terrine, a roasted shallot stuffed with sautéed spinach, and, finally, braised celery served with the Cornish hen's butter-poached breast. She had a week to plan, four hours to put her plates together, but it still wasn't enough. Even so, although she lost every timing point going, Gaffney walked away from the Culinary Arts' student-of-the-year competition the clear winner.

Her fellow contestants were the top students from the 12 separate classes that result from new intake each month at VCC. Initially there were 20 in her class. "A few were weeded out; a few weeded themselves out," Gaffney says. She was one of three women in her graduating class of nine. (One classmate signed up for the baking program; the other moved to the Okanagan.) Gaffney sees her future through a long lens and is in no particular hurry. As with the dishes she made for the competition, she doesn't cut corners just to save time, even though she has come comparatively late to what is obviously her métier.

A former skip tracer with a subsequent stint in natural-foods sales and marketing, she was 25 when she started her culinary training, but even though she had grown up in a food-aware home (at one time, her father was a cook), Gaffney explains, "I had no idea about different meat and vegetable cuts, or what went into stock. What I did carry from Home Ec 8 was how to make béchamel." She smiles and says, "I didn't know it was called béchamel."

The presentation of her winning dishes had clarity, elegance, sensuality, and restraint. Where some entrants presented the visual equivalent of Jack Nicholson after a bender, Gaffney served up an Audrey Hepburn. Innate or learned skill? Learned, she says, noting that she has a fantastic mentor in chef-instructor John-Carlo Fellicella.

What she's doing now is soaking up as much culinary knowledge as she can in her new job. Talent-spotting doesn't happen just in the sports business. Executive chef Wayne Martin of the Four Seasons, one of the judges, scooped her up soon after the win. Gaffney currently works Sunday and Monday evenings in the hotel's Garden Terrace, and the rest of the time she's garde-manger, handling antipasto, cold plates, and plated salads for banquets. "The Garden Terrace is all line cooking, íƒ   la minute. [You do it when the order comes in.] I'm finding it quite challenging. There's so much timing involved here: the coordination of multiple courses for multiple tables. When you get the chance to stand back and watch someone who's been doing this for some time, you're completely in awe. I'm definitely learning every day."

She doesn't go out to dinner that much. (Last night it was a small mom-and-pop Persian place in North Vancouver.) Mostly she cooks at home, shopping at Famous Foods (1595 Kingsway) and Donald's Market (2342 East Hastings Street), buying organic and free-range whenever she can. Tonight, she's seeing friends, so she'll be doing some finger food, with cheeses, meats, bread, tapenade, roasted garlic, and good olive oil. She makes a lot of curries. "I look at cookbooks for inspiration, but I don't follow recipes," she says. "I definitely play. But I'm too new to this to have any [individual] style."

It would be enlightening to board a time machine and rocket into 2014. By then Gord Martin will have added Bins 943 through 1,067 to his collection, Feenie's will be a global franchise, and the Smoking Dog will have finally quit. As for Scarlet Gaffney, her plans are modest: in 10 years, she says, she would like to still be cooking "in a senior position, perhaps a sous-chef". Would she open her own restaurant? "Yes, if the funding was right. It's such a huge risk," she adds, "especially in Vancouver."