More than 100 people were glued to their seats, held fast like pralines in cream, as local foodies faced off on stage.
It happened twice, Thursday afternoon, at the Northern Taste Market at the BC Northern Exhibition. In the first round, Suzanne Starrett went up against Heidi Johns. The second round pitted Tamara Kobylka against Kate Ames. This was the quartette of amateur chefs who qualified for competition. A panel of judges - Nancy O's co-proprietor Eoin Foley, Cougars business manager Andy Beesley, a representative of Save-On-Foods, and CNC head chef Ron Christian, plus one audience member selected each round - marked them for taste, presentation, originality and some room for bonus marks.
All of this was under the auspices of guest celebrity chef Bob Blumer whose job it was to do live commentary and interviews throughout the proceedings, plus offer his own observations.
Each competitor was allowed two sous chefs. Each was provided with a kitchen on the stage, with standard tools, a stocked refrigerator, and pantry full of everything from fresh vegetables to varieties of rice to dried spices to nuts to potted herbs. There was also a handful of surprise ingredients - peach, avocado - that the contestants had to use in each course of the meals they spontaneously created.
"When you really want to test the skills of a chef you don't hand them a fancy ingredient like foie gras or truffles," Blumer told the audience. "Any chef can do something interesting with resources like that. The real skills of a chef are revealed with simple ingredients like peach or avocado."
There was tension. There were jangled nerves on the stage. There was even fire as one chef got distracted and forgot something in the oven. Oops. But in true competition style, the team worked around that setback and carried on with other culinary creations to impress the judges.
"I think cooking is an art form, whether you are an amateur or a professional," said Beesley when asked by Bulmer what drew him to this competition. "I'm interested to see how these chefs deal with time constraints. I know from my own kitchen creations, so much depends on how you time everything out, so the things that are supposed to be hot at the end really are hot at the end."
Guest judge Al Moffat couldn't believe his good luck. There to enjoy the competitive cooking, he got his name drawn to participate from inches away instead of down in the seats.
"Presentation is a big thing for me," said Moffat, a former commercial cook before his career at a local pulp mill. "If something looks good, you expect it to taste good, too."
"There was actually an old quote that says the first taste of food is with the eyes," Bulmer agreed.
To see how the preliminary rounds turned out, come to the amateur finals at 2 p.m. Saturday.
The professional chefs have an even larger tournament starting today with events at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. followed by 11 a.m. Saturday. The ultimate finals happen Sunday at 3 p.m.
