The Blume is still on the Iron Ore rose.
Bob Blumer - celebrity chef, bestselling author, television host and international man of culinary mystery - will be back again at the B.C. Northern Exhibition as the ringmaster of the Northern Taste Market.
Last year he helped launch this food frenzy that took the annual fall fair to a new level. For the previous 100 years the fair celebrated the agricultural and horticultural fingers that grow our foods and fuels. The Northern Taste Market was invented to take that celebration to the next level: the best chefs in town preparing delectable dishes right in front of a live audience, with the clock ticking, Blumer doing impromptu interviews and providing play-by-play commentary as these chefs race to prepare their best with the top prize on the line.
"After they've gotten a taste for what it's like (from the inaugural event last year), I think they'll bring their A-game this year, and last year was already pretty rockin'," said Blumer, anticipating this weekend's nutriment tournament.
"For me, once I leave my hotel in the morning until I get back after everything all day long, I get to hang out in a town that has been really great to me, so that's a lot of fun, I can't wait," he added.
Blumer is also adding something new to the festivities. He is crafting a new concept for a show, and Prince George will be his primary testing ground.
"It's kind of fun, for me. It started out with a long bike ride with some other chefs. There was some talk about picky eaters, there was talk about a show for kids, and things started to gel," he explained.
"I was a picky eater as a kid. I lived on nothing but iceberg lettuce and tomato sandwiches on white toast, for years of my life. So I empathize with parents who have picky eaters in their house," he said. "So what came to me is getting picky eater kids up on stage, cooking for them, and trying to hit on something they'll like. It's like a mock reality show, for the young picky eater. So I'll take some nontraditional ingredients and make up some stuff on stage that the kids might like. And Prince George is the test run for it. You're the modelling exercise."
Blumer is always thinking up concepts for new shows, even involuntarily. He doesn't act to develop all of them, there are just so many, but he has turned several into winning television and book entertainment recipes. His most famous shows have titles like The Surreal Gourmet, Glutton For Punishment (there is a companion book called Glutton For Pleasure) and World's Weirdest Restaurant. He calls himself a gastronaut, for the lengths he'll go to for food, and he is the holder of seven food-related Guinness World Records (most pancakes flipped in an hour, biggest bowl of salsa, most pizzas made in one hour, etc.).
He is based in the Los Angeles area now, but travels the world on a regular basis, usually with a camera in tow, but he is all Canadian. He was brought up in Montreal and serves as an ambassador for the Toronto hunger reduction charity Second Harvest. He was also once an active behind-the-scenes operator in the Canadian music industry - everything from artist management to hawking T-shirts on rock tours.
He got into the kitchen by being a picky eater. He was disgruntled with the usual road-food consumed by the cast and crew of any music act he was involved with, so he made his own fare instead. That led to a self-discovery of a major affinity for interesting ingredients and artful food presentation. That led back to his familiar comfort zone inside show-biz, and the cameras have been rolling on him ever since.
"You chase what's exciting to you, then if it keeps exciting you, you can maybe make something commercial out of it," he explained. That's his recipe for a quality food program on TV.
"I do things that are interesting to me, but I don't chase an audience. I'd rather quit while I'm ahead than create something I'm not proud of. Which is why picky eaters comes up for me now, because I was one, and everybody has some touch with that, so I know it's authentic and it's real, and finding solutions to a problem is a lot of fun."
With all the successes he's had on page and screen, does it ever cross his mind to turn the elements of his work down to simmer? He's still a young man, for all his accomplishments, so if he ever harboured notions of being a professional tailor or plumber, it could still be done.
"Quite the contrary," he said. "Not that life as a plumber wouldn't be interesting. But at this point in the game, after almost 25 years, I have learned a few things, so I can work on different combinations of ideas and think of ways to do more in this world of food. I'm not looking for ways to get out of the industry now that I'm in it. I think it's fun, and believe me, it is a privilege to get to do all the different stuff I get to do. I think all the TV hosts - at least the ones I get to talk to from time to time - recognize that privilege for what it is."
And that includes coming to Prince George. He's actually licking his lips to return to some of the restaurants he enjoyed last year, on his personal survey of the city's food life. He also hopes to see a bear in the wild, preferably as he cycles the highways and byways of the city. He is a passionate cyclist and tried out some local routes last year.
"I actually got hit by a car on a ride (near his California home) last week, that was not a lot of fun, but I'm back in form now. I'm ready for the Iron Ore Challenge."
