Making the Chef: Taste Testing
By Casey Gillis on Jun. 03, 2009
(434) 385-5525
I’ve always wondered what it would be like to guest judge on an episode of “Top Chef,” one of my favorite shows.
Well, I recently got a taste — literally — of the reality judging trade as one of 20-plus people who judged the final round of the Holiday Inn Select’s “Making the Chef” competition, which was designed to choose a chef for the hotel’s new restaurant.
The eatery, which will be located inside the Holiday Inn’s Main Street location, is part of a larger renovation project that began in February, and winner Michelle Hamrick has big plans for it (see sidebar for more information).
General Manager Tony Camm organized “Making the Chef” and acted as emcee and head judge throughout the competition.
“I figured I had to come up with something new,” he says. “I just like to do stuff that’s different. I wanted to create some energy around it.”
Earlier stages of the competition had contestants cooking an entry dish, which basically acted as their application, for Camm and two other judges and, later, presenting a business plan in an “Apprentice”-style boardroom setting.
The final round, for which I was a judge, was a cook-off among the final three contestants: Hamrick, Ronnie Napier and Michael Bowling.
Each chef was assigned a night to cook and was tasked with preparing a salad, entrée and dessert that, when ordered together off a menu, would cost a patron no more than $22.
Hamrick was up first, and I must admit that I reconsidered my decision to judge after a glimpse at the menu and her entrée: Moroccan-style salmon with a carrot mousse and creamed fresh peas in a smoky pecan butter.
Salmon is a fish I’ve never been too fond of, and the “Moroccan-style” raised a few red flags as well. After some discussion with my fellow judges, we decided that curry must somehow be involved — another ingredient that doesn’t usually agree with my picky palate.
I wondered if I could just jump ahead to dessert, a graham cracker cake with layers of chocolate ganache and marshmallow.
But, in the spirit of the competition, I ate every last bit of the meal, and I’m very happy to report how wrong I was about the salmon, which was seared in curry, cayenne pepper and cinnamon.
I’m no foodie, so it’s hard for me to explain it any other way than flat-out delicious.
The carrot mousse, too, was a pleasant surprise and tasted just like sweet potatoes.
And don’t even get me started on the peas. I’d eat them with every meal if it were possible.
Also fabulous was Hamrick’s salad — fresh baby greens with toasted goat cheese and candied grapes, tossed in sherry-maple vinaigrette — and dessert.
The hard part was that Hamrick’s competitors, Ronnie Napier and Michael Bowling, were great, too.
Napier’s entrée was a honey-glazed chicken breast with a yummy sweet potato hash and vegetables. For dessert he whipped up his specialty: Cookies on Fire, a stack of homemade oatmeal cookies with whipped cream and strawberries, blueberries and raspberries.
Bowling also went the chicken route with Tuscan grilled chicken and a spring vegetable risotto. The chicken was cooked perfectly: moist, with a crispy skin. I really could’ve gone for a bigger piece.
The risotto made me nervous — the only thing I knew about risotto was that “Hell’s Kitchen” contestants better know how to make it, or risk the wrath of Gordon Ramsay.
But Bowling provided a tasty introduction to a dish I’d never had before.
Going into the competition, I wasn’t sure about eating out three nights in one week, especially so close to bathing suit season (hey, it’s something we all worry about!).
But it never felt like I was eating unhealthily or cheating on a diet. (Well, maybe just a little bit after eating Hamrick’s dessert. But that’s a guilt I’m more than willing to shoulder; I’m still dreaming of that graham cracker masterpiece.)
After three nights of fabulous food, I certainly didn’t envy Camm and the decision that was before him. I wondered how he and the hotel management staff could possibly choose a winner among such a talented group. (Camm says he solicited comments from all the judges and combined that with feedback from the earlier rounds.)
I was also pretty sad to see the competition come to an end, as it had quickly become about more than just eating and judging.
It was a chance to enjoy a meal and good conversation with a great group of people.
Some of my fellow judges included Mayor Joan Foster, WSET anchor Noreen Turyn, Academy of Fine Arts’ Executive Director Dick Kordos, Magnolia Foods’ Willie Payne and Dance Theatre of Lynchburg’s Keith Lee — or Simon Cowell, as we jokingly started calling him after a particularly brutal critique.
“We’ve been talking about how this has been like summer camp,” Camm said before we dug into our final meal, “where you spend a whole week with people, and (when it’s over) you get sort of melancholy.”
Now I’m just waiting for Camm to come up with his next — and, I hope, food-centric — competition.
I’ll be the first in line.
COMMENTS