{"id":3746,"date":"2018-02-02T03:27:18","date_gmt":"2018-02-02T08:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jameschatto.com\/?p=3746"},"modified":"2018-02-02T14:54:42","modified_gmt":"2018-02-02T19:54:42","slug":"canadian-culinary-championships-part-one-the-judges-arrive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jameschatto.com\/?p=3746","title":{"rendered":"Canadian Culinary Championships part one – the judges arrive"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Chefs with their mystery wine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To balmy Kelowna for the 12th<\/sup> running of the Canadian Culinary Championships, the weekend-long competition between the winning chefs from the eleven Gold Medal Plates regional contests.<\/p>\n

For the last couple of years, Laura Kittmer and the Britsh Columbia Wine Institute have been kind enough to host the judges to a spectacular feast on the Wednesday evening when we all arrive. This year, they did so again, bringing us to the splendid Red Fox Club restaurant at Indigenous World Winery, the first winery on the planet entirely owned by indigenous people \u2013 namely, an eminently hospitable couple, Robert and Bernice Louie. Chef Andrea Callan cooked a stellar banquet for us, highlighting aboriginal cuisine, including superb sea urchin br\u00fbl\u00e9e, quail egg hidden in a ball of ground pemmican, impeccable squab, and \u2013 the highlight \u2013 elk tenderloin with an amazing sauce made entirely from lichen that had so much deep flavour and umami it might have been a Mexican mole laced with Marmite. And we were delighted by the wines, all presented by the winemakers \u2013 marvellous treats from Little Farm, Le Vieux Pin, Sandhill Wines, Vista D\u2019oro Farm and Winery and Indigenous World Winery itself who kicked the evening off with a first-class dry sparkling ros\u00e9 made from its Pinot Noir.<\/p>\n

The evening was a fine opportunity for the judges to calibrate their palates, and also to pick up the threads of conversations from previous years. Let me tell you who was there. Alas, our Senior Judge from St. John\u2019s, Chef Roary Macpherson, wasn\u2019t. Stricken with an ear infection the day before he was due to fly out to Kelowna, he was forced to remain in Newfoundland on doctor\u2019s orders. So our Senior Judge for GMP Halifax, journalist, writer and restaurant critic, Bill Spurr, had farthest to come. From Montreal, restaurant critic, writer, lecturer and anthropologist, Robert Beauchemin. From Ottawa, author and broadcaster, senior editor of Taste & Travel Magazine and former restaurant critic of the Ottawa Citizen, Anne DesBrisay. From Toronto, writer and editor, intrepid explorer of the industrial food complex, Sasha Chapman. From Winnipeg, chef, pastry chef and restaurateur, Barbara O\u2019Hara. From Regina, author, food writer, documentary food photographer and broadcaster, CJ Katz. From Saskatoon, writer, journalist and all-round food guru, Noelle Chorney. From Edmonton, wine, food and travel writer, certified sommelier and wine instructor, the founder of Edmonton\u2019s Slow Food convivium,\u00a0Mary Bailey. From Calgary, teacher, broadcaster, author and restaurant columnist for the Calgary Herald, John Gilchrist. From Kelowna, chef instructor here at Okanagan College and master pastry chef, Perry Bentley. From Vancouver, world-renowned wine and food judge and the wine and food voice for Western Living<\/em> magazine, Sid Cross. And also from Vancouver, author, teacher, restaurant critic, and the editor-in-chief of Scout Magazine<\/em>, Andrew Morrison.<\/p>\n

We are the judges \u2013 and there will be Olympic athletes, winemakers, brewers, distillers, and the immortal rock band 54-40 on hand as well to add energy to the party. But the real stars are the chefs, together with their sous chefs and their posse of students from Okanagan College\u2019s culinary program, who will duke it out in three gruelling competitions. Here are the assembled champions.<\/p>\n

REPRESENTING BRITISH COLUMBIA \u2013 Alex Chen<\/strong>\u2013Boulevard Kitchen & Oyster Bar<\/p>\n

REPRESENTING CALGARY- Blake Flann<\/strong> \u2013 BLAKE, Canmore<\/p>\n

REPRESENTING EDMONTON- Shane Chartrand<\/strong> \u2013 SAGE<\/p>\n

REPRESENTING REGINA \u2013 David Vinova<\/strong> \u2013 Wild Sage Kitchen & Bar<\/p>\n

REPRESENTING SASKATOON \u2013 James McFarland<\/strong> \u2013 University of Saskatchewan<\/p>\n

REPRESENTING WINNIPEG \u2013 Mike Robins<\/strong> \u2013 Sous Sol<\/p>\n

REPRESENTING TORONTO \u2013 Lorenzo Loseto<\/strong> \u2013 George Restaurant<\/p>\n

REPRESENTING OTTAWA \u2013 Briana Kim<\/strong> \u2013 Caf\u00e9 My House<\/p>\n

REPRESENTING MONTREAL \u2013 \u00c9ric Gonzalez – <\/strong>L\u2019Atelier Jo\u00ebl Robuchon<\/p>\n

REPRESENTING ST. JOHN\u2019S \u2013 Nick Jewczyk – <\/strong>The Fifth Ticket<\/p>\n

REPRESENTING NOVA SCOTIA \u2013 <\/strong>Barry Mooney<\/strong> \u2013 Gio<\/p>\n

Yes, it\u2019s a powerful group and includes one returning Canadian Culinary Champion \u2013 Lorenzo Loseto, who won it all four years ago, and another chef, Alex Chen, who won bronze two years ago and had unfinished business here in the mountains.<\/p>\n

And now it\u2019s Thursday evening and the official opening ceremony where we introduce the judges and chefs to the sponsors and media and begin the competition by handing each chef a bottle of the Mystery Wine that the scrupulously secretive David Lawrason, Gold Medal Plates\u2019s National Wine Advisor, has chosen and sourced. The chefs and their sous chefs can take away the anonymous vino, ponder it, analyze it, and then create a dish that perfectly matches its nuances. They must shop for all the ingredients they need to make the dish \u2013 enough to feed 400 people, plus a dozen judges \u2013 and they may only spend $500. It\u2019s a test of economy as well as wine-matching skills and cooking, and the pressure is intense. I\u2019ve just got back to my hotel room (via an altogether delightful dinner at Mark Filatow\u2019s superb restaurant, Waterfront, shared with the other judges). A couple of the competing chefs had chosen to bring their bottles there and deliberate (at opposite ends of the bar) and we judges caught a tantalizing glimpse of the mystery wine. All I can tell you so far is that it is white\u2026<\/p>\n

TO BE CONTINUED<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To balmy Kelowna for the 12th running of the Canadian Culinary Championships, the weekend-long competition between the winning chefs from the eleven Gold Medal Plates regional contests. For the last couple of years, Laura Kittmer and the Britsh Columbia Wine Institute have been kind enough to host the judges to a spectacular feast on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[93,91,94,92,1],"tags":[8],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3746"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3746"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3750,"href":"http:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3746\/revisions\/3750"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jameschatto.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}