On Friday evening, Regina’s elite gathered at the Conexus Arts Centre, a unique venue where Gold Medal Plates had set out guests’ tables on the stage of the theatre, turning our audience into the star performers. We listened to inspiring speeches and a fascinating q&a with our Olympian athletes conducted by Marnie McBean, who was in brilliantly irreverent form. Emcee and Olympic hockey legend Jennifer Botterill kept the whole evening belting along like a breakaway. Jim Cuddy and Barney Bentall scored repeatedly with their power play and helped sell a record number of trips. All in all, it was a thoroughly merry and successful evening.
Joining me to do the heavy lifting where eating was concerned was our formidable team of local judges led by Senior Judge, author and broadcaster CJ Katz; author and food columnist, Amy Jo Ehman; Executive Chef of the Provincial Legislature and International culinary competitor, Trent Brears; chef and culinary teacher Thomas Rush; restaurant columnist and broadcaster Aidan Morgan, and last year’s gold-medal-winner and bronze medallist at the last Candian Culinary Championship, chef Milton Rebello.
Meat was dominant in the line-up last night, a single (beautifully cooked) steelhead trout the only representative of the finny tribe and all the judges felt standards had leaped forward since last year’s Regina GMP debut. Our bronze medal was won by Laurie Wall of Wallnuts Expressive Catering. She prepared a wild elk tenderloin by smoking it over a fire of white birch and setting a slice of the perfectly tender meat on a square of birch bark, moistened with a spoonful of chokecherry and port reduction. On top of this she placed a spoon-sized piece of cattail cornbread, made with the fluff of cattails that had gone to seed instead of flour. It had a unique texture and a delicious corn flavour that harmonized beautifully with the elk. Sharing the birchbark raft was a potage of diced vegetables from Chef Wall’s own garden – orange and yellow carrots, purple and white potatoes, beets, onion, butternut squash, diced and roasted separately to retain their distinct integrities then bound by a squash mash and topped with a crisp sage leaf. The lovely dish was nicely matched by Hillside Winery’s 2009 Mosaic, a Bordeaux blend from Penticton, B.C.
Our silver medal went to Ricardo Rodriguez of The Artful Dodger Café & Music Emporium who proposed a trio of local lamb. There was a gorgeously juicy rib, the meat so tender it fell from the bone, glistening with a roasted chipotle honey glaze that had some real spicy heat beneath its sweetness. The lamb flank was rolled around phoenix mushrooms, roasted and then sliced into a sort of Catherine wheel, a succulent and tasty treatment.The third part of the trio was a teaspoonful of mousse made from the lamb’s brains, subtly scented with citrus. As garnish, we found a streak of black Persian thyme oil, a mound of crushed purple raspberries that created a visually dramatic scarlet stripe on the plate, and a crispy kale chip dusted with maple and mustard. Chateau des Charmes 2010 Generation Seven, a fascinating red blend from Niagara, proved to be an inspired pairing.
Taking the gold last night was Jonathan Thauberger from Crave Kitchen + Wine Bar who worked with rabbit from local Fenek Farms. “The whole dish is designed around the wine,” he explained as the plates were brought to the judges. Front and centre was a moist, flavourful ballotine of the rabbit using several cuts and a forcemeat all bound around a green dot of leek. A pool of rabbit jus was absolutely delicious and quickly mopped up using the slice of brioche toast and rabbit-stock-infused whipped butter chef thoughtfully provided. Cattail hearts had been stained pink and yellow with purple and golden beet juice to make a wee salad garnished with nasturtium petals and a hint of mint while nasturtiums (picked from chef’s own garden) also featured as a sweet, peppery jelly and as a powder presented in a free-standing mound for anyone who wanted to add a touch more of its gentle, mustardy heat. Miniature carrot and baby beet balanced the dish and the finishing touch was a potato crisp, deep fried and translucent. And the wine match? Chef Thauberger was as good as his word – a seamless pairing with Fairview Cellars 2010 Two Hoots, a rich, ripe, tangy Bordeaux blend from the Okanagan.
So we are half way through what is proving to be a brilliant and hugely successful campaign. Tonight we move on to Calgary but we already have five strong champions who will compete in Kelowna in February. The ultimate champion, incidentally, will find a delightful prize from Gold Medal Plates’s newest sponsor, BMW cars… Whoever wins the Canadian Culinary Championship receives a two-year lease on a brand new 2014 BMW 640-I x-Drive Gran Coupe. Certainly something to play for!
And now the Wine Report from Gold Medal Plates’s National Wine Advisor, David Lawrason
Big Reds Rule the Prairies
Every wine poured by Regina’s chefs at the 2013 edition of Gold Medal Plates was crimson; perhaps because every dish they prepared featured a great plains beast of some description – from hare to lamb to elk, not to mention good old beef tenderloin. With winter setting it’s time to bulk up.
So the winner of the Best of Show Wine Award was right in its element – the complex, savoury Sandhill 2010 One from the Phantom Creek Vineyard. Winemaker Howard Soon has added a bit of syrah to this vintage, which brings some elevated peppery spicy to the mix of smoke and currant fruit, and the finish travels for several minutes. One also won in Edmonton.
The Best of Show Wine Award is a judging of all the wines in each city to recognize the generosity of the Canadian wine industry, which each year counts over 60 wineries as donors. The winning wineries have increased odds in a draw to spend a week at Borgo San Felice in Tuscany.
The runner-up was virtually unanimous, a surprisingly deep yet piquant Blue Grouse 2009 Pinot Noir from Vancouver Island’s Cowichan Valley. In third place was the powerful Hillside 2009 Mosaic, a five-grape Bordeaux blend that needs either more time in bottle, or to be opened and decanted astride a dish like the wild elk with cattail cornbread by Chef Laurie Wall of Wallnuts Expressive Catering.
Sandhill One is in the portfolio of Andrew Peller Ltd., the National Celebration Wine Sponsor that is donating wine at eleven events across Canada this fall. In Regina they also provided a juicy, young Wayne Gretzky 2012 Merlot from the Okanagan Valley and a maturing 2010 Sandhill Chardonnay for over 500 guests.
I was re- joined this year in the plush “judges chambers” at the Conexus Centre by two of Regina’s most respected palates. Debbie Tetlock is a product consultant, educator and manager of the SLGA liquor store at Broad St and 12th. Rob Dobson is a wine educator and writer with Savour Magazine and Savour.ca. And he is a true gentleman, who shared a personal favourite bottle of white Burgundy with us when our duties were done.
Only one of our wine picks went to the big podium with a medalling chef (not meddling chef) – the aforementioned Hillside 2009 Mosaic, which paired with bronze medal winner Laurie Wall. Silver medalist Ricardo Rodriguez of The Artful Dodger Café & Music Emporium chose the juicy Chateau des Charmes 2010 Generation Seven to match to his trio of local lamb.
And gold medalist Jonathan Thauberger of Crave Kitchen + Wine Bar will be going to Kelowna with Fairview 2009 Two Hoots, a vibrant, complex Bordeaux blend by Okanagan iconoclast Bill Eggert . (This was my choice for best wine of the night)
Other wines poured this night included Pelee Island 2012 Alvar, Henry of Pelham 2012 Baco Noir and Peller 2011 Syrah.