- Please take your seats. Tonight's event is ready to begin. As a courtesy to those around you, please
- turn off your personal electronic communication devices. Welcome to the 2010 Community Kitchens Chef's
- Challenge.
- fourth annual Bloomington Chef's Challenge. You have to excuse me. I'm your lovable and affable host.
- My name is Brad Wilhelm. I'm with you. I got to get this on here just right because I'm also running
- the drive-through at Raleigh, so just hang on one second here. I run a nonprofit. I need to pick up
- whatever money I can. All right. Everyone in a good mood? All right.
- You know that you're here to see three of the best chefs in the country compete for the coveted Golden
- Spatula Award. That's right. And not only are they're going to get that golden spatula, they're going
- to get bragging rights for their restaurant, but most importantly, you
- And they, and everyone who's watching this at home, are here to support the Community Kitchen of Monroe
- County. So let me introduce our announced partners. First up, the guy who's going to run up top, he
- needs no introduction, so I'm not sure why I'm actually doing this. You know him as the guy behind the
- bar there at Nick's. Rags.
- already broken stuff. All right. And our color man going up and going to tell us all about what's going
- on from Blooming Foods, Mr. David Koontz.
- So you all know that what this is, if you've seen the television show Iron Chef, that's basically what
- we're going to be doing here. You're going to have three chefs. They're going to come out. They're going
- to be cooking. We had a panel of judges. They're going to be able to judge what they're doing and to
- get our golden winner. But you know what? Those of you who are out there sitting here, you're like,
- what are these people doing down front at these nice tables? They've got plates and silverware? What
- does that mean? It means they're going to get to eat the creations along with the judges that are coming down.
- I hope that those of you down here are ready for an incredible experience this evening. And I hope the
- rest of you who are out there tonight realize that if you just ponied up a little more dough, you could
- be down there right now, too. All right. Dave, my friend Dave Koontz, he's going to let us know about
- some of our sponsors tonight that's made this possible. All right, hold on a second here. Let me get
- my sheet ready here. We've got plenty of sponsors, and we should wait till the end to give all these
- people a really good big hand, because they've all donated lots of money
- and food, not just for the pantry here and for the chefs, but also to the kitchen and its allied causes.
- So anyway, let me tell you about some of our sponsors. We've got Cisco Foods, Blooming Foods, United
- States Food Service, Fine Print, Gouldy and Sons, Relish, Green and Schultz, Attorneys at Law, WFIU,
- Oliver Winery,
- The Herald Times, Goods for Cooks, The Inner Chef, and of course, all the staff and volunteers here
- at the Buskirk Cremley Theater. And of course, most importantly, all of you guys. So give a round of
- applause. Thank you, Dave. And now, Rags is going to introduce our panel of esteemed judges for us.
- Well, thank you, Bradley, first and foremost.
- I'd like to thank everybody for being here for another great event. I think we sold more tickets than
- ever this year. We appreciate all your support. Okay, and next thing I want to do is these people here
- are taking out some of their time to be judges here at this elite competition. First of all, Jeff Meese,
- founder and CEO of One World Enterprises.
- His restaurants include Lenny's, Pizza Express, which has taken delivering pizza to a whole new level,
- and Bloomington Brewery Company, as we lovingly call BBC here in town, some wonderful beers. Jeff is
- a proponent of very much local foods.
- He's a farmer. He raises pot-bellied pigs in Water Buffalo, which pretty soon you're coming out with
- some Water Buffalo mozzarella, which we're really looking forward to. And Jeff's company's most, first
- and foremost, I know he's very proud of this, has a very, is focused on being very environmentally sound,
- which he's a leader in the community for that. We really appreciate that. All the other restaurants
- try to emulate him in that sense. The next judge we all know and love, Charlotte Zitlow,
- Monroe County icon. And I've been told to say semi-legend, but I like to say a legend. She's founded
- Goods Incorporated, which is on the west side of the square, in 1973 with Marilyn Schultz. It's now
- Goods for Cooks, owned by Andrew Apple, who I know is in attendance here. A fantastic store. She created
- and administers food works with the Middleweight House, which helps women in need with their talents.
- teaching them culinary skills and trying to make a better life for themselves. And at Nick's English,
- we're kind of getting ready to work with that with FoodWorks also. Thank you very much for that, Charlotte.
- She helped usher in and shaped the Bloomington culinary world.
- Years ago, you couldn't find things like we have here in this town now. The diversity in restaurants
- is very far and few between, and she is one of the pioneers. And so we can thank her for the beautiful
- food and wonderful chefs we have here tonight, because she indirectly or directly has had a lot to do
- with that. She's been active in Monroe County politics for more than 40 years, serving as Bloomington
- City Council President, as well as a member of the Monroe County Commissioners. And she's served as
- Executive Director of Monroe County United Way. Thank you, Charlotte.
- And our final judge is Lynn Schwartzberg. I'm sure you've read much of her work in the Herald Times.
- Food commas extraordinaire. She's also a gourmet cook. You can see her sometimes at the farmer's market,
- bringing down little packages of baked goods. Very wonderful stuff. She has been a manufacturer's
- representative for several houseware companies, and she's worked in the coffee and food industry since
- 1978. That's about when I started NYX.
- Stints includes Stints at Goods Incorporated with Charlotte, and the 2-Bit Rush, which was an espresso
- bar, the first espresso bar back in the day here in Bloomington. Now there's espresso places everywhere,
- and it was the first, especially independent one, that we had here in Bloomington. She's in charge of
- cooking, she has been in charge of cooking classes at Goods for a number of years, and has had an opportunity
- to learn at the side of many creative chefs. I'm sure you've read her every week, but that's
- Lynn Schwartzberg right there. These are our panel judges for tonight.
- Thank you, Rags. It's now our pleasure to introduce to you the 2009 Golden Spatula winner, the winner
- of the Bloomington Chef's Challenge. He'll be defending his talent, no, he'll be defending his talent,
- and he'll be defending his crown tonight, Mr. Dave Talent. Dave, go ahead and take a bow, and you can
- go ahead and go on back.
- The tension's pretty thick, isn't it, right now. Can you feel it? Do you feel it? I'm very excited.
- Because right now, once again, you may know there is a secret ingredient. That's right. If you've seen
- the show Iron Chef, if you haven't, if you've never been to one of these before, your three chefs are
- going to have to cook with the same secret ingredient. They're going to have to work with this array
- of foods that have all been donated that are going to be right here behind you. And they're going to
- have to create their masterpiece. They're going to have only one hour to do it. We'll tell you about
- the exact specifics in a minute.
- I think it's time to announce the secret ingredient. Won't you please welcome the head honcho for this
- whole event from the Community Kitchen, Mr. Tim Clower.
- Who would have saw that coming, huh? That's right out of left field. Oh, beautiful, beautiful succulent
- cheese. Look at that. All right. So basically, what is going to happen? Yeah, exactly. So what's going
- to happen? You guys can't hear, but the folks at rallies are really funny right now. Someone won a big
- Buford with double cheese. I was like, you don't know what just happened here. It was very funny.
- No. We're going to take that cheese out there right now. Oh. Is that, Dave, is that real cheese? Dave,
- can you hear me? Is that real cheese? That is real cheese, and it is real heavy. I'm going to be out
- in my car for a few minutes. All right, you enjoy that. And if he goes out in his car with that, you
- can be sure that he's not going to be in the bathroom for quite a while. All right. This has taken a
- strange turn, and we're going to get it right back on track here.
- So your chefs are going to have one hour. We're going to introduce them. Your chefs are going to come
- out. They're going to have one hour to make their creation. After it's done, what we politely
- and respectfully say is the voice of God is going to let us know our countdown. When things are ready
- to start, you're going to hear it too. And then we're going to go through here. They're going to get
- one hour with the secret ingredient and their sous chef when they come up. And then they're going to
- be able to plate to the judges. They'll have five minutes to do that. And then they'll plate down here
- to the bistro seats. All right.
- Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to introduce your first contestant this evening. It is Jake Brinchley
- from the Scholars Inn with his sous chef, Josh Miller. His prep time is starting now. And Rags? Rags,
- you want to give us some background here?
- Stranger to this competition at all. He was the winner of the very first chef challenge in 2007 Jake
- has also garnered Jake started the most votes this year
- As a two-time competitor, expects his knowledge of the competition's format will keep him calm and focused
- on his cooking. This guy's a gamer. He's like a starting pitcher, like a Bob Gibson, okay? This guy's
- tough. He really can't, his concentration level's really high. He also shows off his talent here since
- this is a community event and is rivaling any large foodie city anywhere. He's really proud of Bloomington
- and the food culture that we have here.
- His sous chef is Josh Miller, who's been with him quite a few years. These guys cook together quite
- a bit. So you guys realize last year we had a competition in which we had different chefs, sous chef
- for other chefs. These guys got to pick their own sous chefs this year. Interviewed lately with the
- Herald Times, when cooking for a great cause, Jake said, my food tends to be even better. So we love
- a guy like this.
- The scholars in Bake House are 11th in college. I'm sure many of you have been there. And if you haven't,
- you really need to make a trip over there. Correct. Scholars in Gourmet Wine Bar and Cafe. There you
- go. OK. That's the scholars in Gourmet Wine Bar and Cafe. Correct. OK, Bradley.
- minutes before we're going to get started there. Let's see what we can do here. So, Dave, can you let
- us know what Jake and his sous chef are going to be working on right now? How are they going to get
- started with this here? I'm sorry? How do you think they're going to get started? Well, you know...
- You're messing with me now, aren't you, Dave? You know, I would say that he's going to be working on
- some longer things to cook, maybe boiling some water for some kind of maybe pasta or something that
- takes a long time to cook, like, you know, something
- You know, like rice or risotto. I'm not sure what question you're asking. Something like rice. Something
- similar to rice. While we have a couple of minutes, can I tell you a little bit about some of the cheeses
- that we've got? Absolutely, yeah. We've got some local cheeses. We've got some cheese from Capriol Goat
- Cheese Farms. They're down in Greenville, Indiana.
- Their world-famous goat cheese is made by Judy Shad. They've been making cheese since the late 80s,
- so over 20 years, and they've won numerous awards all over the world. We've also got some Swiss Connection
- cheese. That's grass-fed cheeses made in Clay City, Indiana, and they've been making cheese since 2000.
- We've got cheese from the Dutch Cheese House, which is in Middlebury, Indiana, north of Indianapolis.
- And they've been making cheese since 1979, and they've got a variety of mostly harder cheeses.
- And then we've got some cheese from Switzerland in Bern, Indiana, which is about 100 miles northeast
- of here, and they've been making cheese for 2,000. So almost all these cheeses are grass-fed. They're
- from cows, goats, and they're all basically from Indiana, and they've all been making cheese for more
- than a decade. So that's something that I think we can be really proud of, that we've got these great
- producers that are more or less local and making really great stuff.
- Okay, we've got one minute until we start, one minute until we start. So, we got any guesses about what
- we, you think there might be, sir, any guesses? No. All right, thanks for playing, appreciate that.
- We've got some, speaking of playing, we've got some fabulous prizes coming up with some silent auction
- items and we'll get your thinking caps on. We have a quiz, a quiz coming up where you can also earn
- things like a,
- a gift certificate to Pizza X, Yonko's little Zagreb, Crazy Horse, Scholar's Inn, on and on,
- all this stuff, and probably the most prized is a Yonko's t-shirt. We're also gonna be giving away his,
- who is right? That's right.
- Remember, once again, the reason we're doing this, the reason the chefs are here, the reason we're all
- here, is to support the Community Kitchen of Monroe County. You'll be hearing more about the Community
- Kitchen soon, but the Community Kitchen is a United Way agency. United Way agency of Monroe County,
- which is getting ready to kick off its fall fun drive here soon. The United Way serves 26 different
- agencies. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, begin. And he's off!
- As I was saying about the United Way, the campaign's getting ready to kick off. 26 agencies serving
- everything from food like the Community Kitchen, the Hoosier Hills Food Bank, Monroe County
- United Ministries, to the Red Cross, to Stone Belt, to Middle Way House, and even youth serving agencies
- like Girls Inc, and the Boys and Girls Club, and Big Brothers, Big Sisters.
- and even Rhino's Youth Center, United Way agencies. So your donation to the United Way goes a long way
- to helping this community. So the Community Kitchen, once again, a member of the Mirror Cutting United
- Way, when they come to your workplace, please give generously. All right, we're going to go to a video
- right now. So let's take a look at the big screen.
- I'm here with Chef Jake Brinchley at the Scholars Inn Gourmet Cafe and Wine Bar. Hi, Jake. Hi, Lynn.
- So, coming back to the Chef's Challenge, how does it feel? How do you prepare when you've been the champ
- and you're coming up and you're a challenger this time? Well, Dave's going to be a great competitor.
- Oh, they're both going to be great competitors. I'm just looking forward to just being up there cooking.
- I loved it. I had a great time. The hour goes by much quicker than you actually think it does.
- But I really can't wait. I think it's really fun working with local products. And that's what I really
- appreciated last time. We go to the farmers market quite a bit, and now we're getting the opportunity
- to cook in front of all these people with the same products. So I feel good about it. I'm comfortable.
- Well, what about the secret ingredient? How do you plan for something that you don't know what it is?
- What we've been doing for the past couple years here at Scholars is we've been trying to work with so
- many different ingredients and understanding how they work with different flavor combinations. So I'm
- hoping that
- secret ingredient will fit in somewhere with some of the experience that I've had with some of these
- flavors and you know building on things. Bloomington's restaurant scene has completely exploded or at
- least from where I'm sitting. How do you feel all the new restaurants have added to the education of
- your customers? Do you think your customers are braver? They'll eat new
- New ingredients take a little bit more chance on the menu items. This menu, what we've really tried
- to focus on is making the ordinary extraordinary. So we're changing different favorites that people
- have had, things like meatloaf and fried chicken, different things like that. We've put our own classic
- fun spin on things to kind of educate them in a way that they haven't really seen before. So instead
- of introducing a dish that's just brand new and a little bit different to them, we're introducing kind
- of similar flavors with our own fun
- adaptation of it. And I think people are really responding to that. It's kind of helping them ease their
- way into more of this upscale dining, even though we're trying to keep it really nice and casual and
- fun. So I bet a lot of people think when they come to Scholars Inn it has to be a big birthday or their
- anniversary or graduation.
- How do you feel about the restaurant? This is an everyday place. You want people to lay back, relax.
- We've got a great martini list. We're running specials pretty much every night of the week,
- whether it's wine, half off appetizers, a lot of different things. Yeah, we have a lot of new specialty
- beers that we're doing. So again, it's a fun place. You can just come and sit. Not to mention,
- every Friday, Saturday, we have live music up on our upper deck. That's right. That's right. So again,
- it's just a place to have a good time. Summer was really a good time because you can come and have a cocktail.
- one of our gourmet flatbreads and just kind of take it easy. Thanks so much. Good luck in the competition.
- Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Jake Brinchley, everybody. Okay. Absolutely. Dave, we're going
- to move over here and take a look at what Chef Brinchley's doing right now. Dave, can you tell us what
- he's doing in his early preparation? Well, he's got a plethora of ingredients out on his station. He's
- got I see fennel, leeks, peppers, peaches, apples. He's got pork loin, bacon, rice vinegar, olive oil,
- white wine vinegar.
- what I will and he's got some of that Dutch cheese house farmers cheese and Jake has trimmed a pork
- loin and he's got it searing in this pan already he's got a pan of boiling water and his sous chef Josh
- has already sliced up some pears and some app and some apples and it looks like we've also got peaches
- on the station we have corn on the station my first guess just looking at what we've got right now is
- he's probably gonna make some kind of a pear and cheese sauce for this pork loin since pear is such a natural
- accompaniment to pork, I think, and most people would think. But at this point, with so many ingredients,
- it could go anywhere. It could go to any point in the culinary world, which is what's really exciting
- about having so much great food up here and so much great food from all these great farmers. Thank you,
- David. For those of you who are right now, you're going to start?
- smelling that Pokemon here in just a second. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're staggering, so get
- ready to bring out the next contestant right now. So I want you to please welcome Mr. Tom Dempsey and
- his sous chef, Jackie Buck. All right, Rags, what can you tell us about the chef?
- So we have Thomas Dempsey from the Scenic View restaurant, and the sous chef tonight, which is Jamie
- Buck. They have a role reversal going on here, because usually Jamie is the chef out there, executive
- chef, and he's the sous chef. But tonight, it's going to be very interesting to see how they work. A
- little bit of reverse roles, but I think they'll be OK. The Scenic View restaurant, as you know, is
- located on Scenic 446, just by Lake Monroe, sometimes called The View, of course. And it's one of the
- newest restaurants in town. The focus of the menu at the Scenic View
- one of the newest chefs in town. The focus of the menu at the Scenic View is a casual fare with creative
- ingredients such as smoked salmon, mac and cheese, green eggs and ham, and a few other specialties over
- there. They run daily specials. They have a fantastic beer list also for you who wish to buy. For the
- secret ingredient, Chef Dempsey is practiced every day by having his staff throw out a secret ingredient
- and then he has to create a dish from that. This has worked pretty well. I talked to him earlier here,
- and he feels really good about the competition. He's fairly new to town, but I think they have a good
- combination going on here, and be creative to see what type of things that they have going on here.
- So back to you, Bradley. All right, thank you, Regs. All right. I think we would like to do one quick
- quiz question. What do you guys think? You ready for it? Win something? All right.
- Samantha, this is my daughter Samantha. I want you to be able to stand up. Yeah, that's right. You give
- her a round of applause. All right, Sam. Sam, since I can't see, you tell me who gets their hand up
- first to answer this question, okay? Each year, the National Restaurant Association awards one restaurant
- in each state its Restaurant Neighbor Award. This year's award for Indiana went to a Bloomington restaurant
- and a B-I-R-A member. Name that restaurant.
- Right here. Thanks, Sam. I guess I didn't need you, Sam. All right, there we go. What? No, that is incorrect.
- Lenny's is the correct answer. And B-I-R-A is, of course, the Bloomington Independent Restaurant Association.
- Mr. Paul Busby is here, and he's at the back of the stadium. Where are you, Paul? Where are you? Straight
- ahead. Stand up and take a bow.
- There you go, right back there. Samantha, can you deliver this gift certificate to the crazy horse to
- our winner? Ha, see, if you want to eat the food, you've got to work for it, little girl. There you
- go. All right. OK, we've got two minutes before we're going to start cooking. Do we have time for one
- more quiz question, do you think? All right. Locally owned Pizza X, which is formerly Pizza Express,
- put X on the express area.
- operates one of the busiest pizza delivery stores in the country. Founder Jeff Mee started the company
- at the tender age of 20. Who was his neighbor at Colonial Crest Apartments during that time? No,
- I'm sorry. That's not the correct answer. Jeff, do you have that answer? Brad Wilhelm is the correct
- answer. Yes. Yeah.
- What year did I live in Colonial Crest Apartments? That is your quiz question. Anyone know the answer?
- What year did Pizza Express say? What? 2010. I'm not even going to dignify that with a response. 1982
- is the correct answer young lady. And you win.
- You win a $10 gift certificate to Pizza X. Chef Dempsey, you have 45 seconds. 45 seconds. Oh, this is
- exciting. OK, when you folks see 50-50, we're going to start the 10-second countdown. So you can see
- the clocks and I can't. So you have something on me that I don't have. 10.
- Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, begin. All right, there we go. All right, and
- now let's see a video about Chef Dempsey.
- I'm here at the Scenic View with Chef Thomas Dempsey. It's also called The View. Good to meet you. Nice
- to meet you, too. So tell me, you're going up against two seasoned chefs. Jake won the first year we
- had the Chef's Challenge. Dave Talents, our defending champion. How are you preparing for this? Well,
- really, it all depends on the ingredient. I can just do as good as I can. Kind of going back and forth
- on guessing what it could be.
- trying to play as many recipes off of that that I can. So how are you preparing for the secret ingredient?
- It could be anything. What are you doing about that? Well we started doing these little mini quick fires
- in the kitchen where I'll come in in the morning and someone will shout out an ingredient and then I
- have to theme the special of the day off of that. Fun, that's really awesome. So you're actually serving
- that dish that day? Oh that's totally awesome.
- So you're not the typical lakeside restaurant. I assume you've experienced people coming either from
- town or from boating on the lake, popping in and finding this menu filled with things they may not have
- expected. We do. I mean, we feel that we still draw from the Bloomington Square crowd. But a lot of
- our business comes actually from the lakeside. People coming out from the lake get off the boat. They're
- tired. They're on the way back to town. They see the view. They come in and have just classy food
- what you'd normally expect from a diner. We call it gourmet with a twist. Our straight menu is pretty,
- it's large, but it sticks for the kind of homestyle food. And then with our specials, we push the envelope
- and we go for the exciting and wow factor. Well, good luck in the challenge. We hope you have a great
- time with our secret ingredient. Thank you very much. All right, thank you.
- And by the way, all this wonderful video and stuff you're doing, Blue Ace Media, and the folks at CATS,
- and the folks here at the Buskirk Show, I mean, they're tech people, are doing a fantastic job. So can
- you all give them a round of applause? And hopefully all of you all know that this is also Local First
- Week. And this weekend has started off Local First Week. Una Winterman is here from Local First. Una,
- where? Una Winterman is here. Where are you, Una? All the way in the back.
- I've butchered your name, and I apologize, and I will forever be in your service. Another name I've
- butchered so far is Chef Dempsey Sous Chef. It is Jamie Buck, not Jackie Buck. So whoever told me the
- name Jackie, I'm coming for you with pain. All right. Dave, what are we doing? Well, over here. Let's
- go in the middle here. All right. Over here on Tom and Jamie's station, we've got some mushroom stock
- boiling in a saucepan over here.
- We've got some finely minced red onion, shallot, and white onion over here. And Tom is peeling apples.
- He's got pork loin out and bacon out as well. He's got eggs. I'm not sure what kind of cheese yet he's
- got going on. Looks like, okay, we'll say we got some Capriol fresh goat cheese and some, yeah, some
- Swiss connection cheese feta over there. And then he's also got some quinoa out, which is a
- pretty interesting ingredient. It's a very high protein grain that it's
- considered an ancient grain, been used for thousands of years. What's the name of that again, Dave?
- It's called quinoa. Quinoa. Q-U-I-N-O-A. And over here on Jake's station, he's got his pork searing
- with salt and pepper in this pan. He's also got some bacon that he's diced down, and he's rendering
- that out right now. Jake has finely minced some hot peppers, it looks like, and then over here on Josh's
- station, he's got some finely diced peaches, apples, and pears, and he's also mincing up
- a red onion right now. So all kinds of exciting things going on here. Still not quite sure where anything's
- heading, but we've got all kinds of great ingredients out here. One of the more interesting ingredients
- I see over on Tom's station is he's got a bag of coffee. So I'm really curious as to where that's going
- to go. The heck you say, coffee? Unless he actually just needs a caffeine buzz. All right, well it can
- be. No coffee makers here, but anyway. So right now we're just watching and seeing what happens.
- Okay, and once again, the smells are starting to waft back through the thing. Who's hungry now?
- All right. All right, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to bring out your final competitor and our reigning
- champion of the fourth annual Bloomington Chef's Challenge, Mr. Dave Talent.
- Dave does has a sous chef with him, Tony Cooper. Tony Cooper is the sous chef. All right. Rags, let
- us know about Mr. Talent. Old David Talent, chef and owner of Restaurant Talent.
- at 208 North Walnut, right here in downtown Bloomington, just down the street. He's defending champion,
- and he's very much involved in local foods and slow foods. A lot of the, especially this time of year,
- he gets a lot of local produce, a lot of local meats, local cheeses, so I'm sure a lot of the ingredients
- he's gonna use tonight are fairly familiar to him. He hopes to stay relaxed during competition. He said
- key to winning is to keep his cooking simple and staying true to his personal style. He's also James Beard,
- awards semifinalist. His one quote is, once the cooking begins, I will be fine. And knowing David, I'm
- sure he will be OK. He's cool as a cucumber, so to speak. He's looking forward to cooking with all the
- local ingredients we have, except for maybe perhaps green peppers. He loathes green peppers. If you've
- ever been to his restaurant, you will never find a green pepper anywhere in the kitchen or in your food.
- So he's a man of convictions, as we see. Last year, I don't know if you remembered, last year he partnered
- with Jeff Finch, owner and chef at Finch's, which is down the street on Kirkwood. And he's service about
- maybe doing something a little bit different this year. But he's got Tony Cooper, a long time assistant
- that has been at Restaurant Talent with him. And Tony and David have worked together on quite a few
- occasions, as far as at the restaurant and catering also. With Kristen,
- his wife and chef also there at Restaurant Talent. She's the pastry chef, so if you ever would really
- like a really nice dessert, go out there and have a fantastic dessert at Restaurant Talent. No, no,
- and there's another trivia question. I don't want to be thrown out. What did Restaurant Talent used
- to be at that location? I think I know. Can I say? I don't know. It was less than... Over here.
- You get a free lunch at Nick's for this one. Come on, what's the name of it? There you go. Give that
- man, we'll get him a gift certificate, his name and phone number, and I'll take care of that, okay?
- Hey, great, fantastic. Rags, I carry Nick's gift cards at all times, so here you go. I was wondering
- where they went. Oh, Brad, you love me. I do love you, Rags, and if ever you need free food at Nick's
- and don't want to pay for it, just come to me, I got it right here, here you go. You have food, food,
- and a little bit of beer too. Yeah, yeah.
- OK. All right. Sorry about that, Brad. I didn't mean the harsher gig there, but I just had to throw
- that out there. You know what? If it weren't for Nick's, I would have never not graduated college.
- All right. Thank you. Why are you applauding for that? All right, ladies and gentlemen, let's get another
- quick quiz question here. Sam, are you ready? All right. That's too easy. Let's go to the next one.
- Bloomington is blessed with two of the best craft breweries in the state of Indiana. Absolutely.
- Can you name the first commercially beer, the commercially beer brewed in Bloomington going back to
- 1995, the first beer, the company and the beer itself? No. Well, there's one in the back, all the way
- in the back. Yes. Well, there is another hand right here. Well, gentlemen, what did you say, sir?
- Right back here in the back. No, everyone keeps saying up. It is not upland wheat. OK, next to the camera
- guy here in the back to the right. That is the correct answer, sir. And you win a two pizza X coupons.
- Ladies and gentlemen, there you go. Hold up your hand so that the beautiful and talented young lady
- with the good genes can get to you there. All right. Counting down here. Once again, everyone enjoying
- themselves correctly, right? 30 seconds there, Dave. Chef Talent, 20 seconds. Can you guys see that
- time? Because I can't see it. All right, 14. 10.
- Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Begin. And now, ladies and gentlemen, all three
- of our contestants are cooking. It's delicious. Well, since you may know what's coming next, it is a
- video about Dave Tallent.
- I'm here at Restaurant Talent with chef and owner Dave Talent. Dave, what do you think about the changing
- restaurants seen in Bloomington? Or has it changed since you've been opened? I think people are definitely
- a little more adventurous. The fact that we have so many different ethnic restaurants and in Bloomington,
- I think kind of is a testament to that. And you know, sometimes the things that we might offer on our
- menu, people might be, you know, people are not as turned off by them as I would.
- sometimes expect. So what's your approach to the secret ingredient going to be this year? Do you have
- a plan? Are you anticipating something in particular, getting your menus conceived? Probably treat it
- a lot the same way. I think I'll probably be a little more relaxed this year because having done it,
- I get the feel of what it's like and how fast the time is going to go. So I think I'll be able to manage
- my time a little better and hopefully be able to produce
- you know, even better tasting food than we did last year. So an hour's plenty of time. Yeah. Yeah. I
- think an hour's plenty of time to, you know, if not get one good quality salad dish, you know,
- two or three. Wow. What do you think about the perception of your restaurant in Bloomington? I know
- some people think it's terribly expensive. They only want to come there on their 50th anniversary or
- some very, very momentous occasion. What would you say to that? Well, I think that, you know, one of
- the main misperceptions is that
- We're the most expensive and the fanciest in that it's only special occasion type restaurant. In reality,
- we're no more expensive than a lot of the other restaurants. It's not just a special occasion type of
- place. Over the last couple of years, we've taken our menu and added in more
- You know, not simpler, but just a little more casual type things. That's Chef Talent from Talents Restaurant.
- Just very quickly, an important point I think was just made is that fine dining is not necessarily expensive
- dining. We have amazing restaurants in this town, amazing restaurants in this town that don't belong
- to a corporate chain that make delicious food that is not that expensive. So when you're going out,
- there's no reason
- There's no reason to go someplace that's going to give you a free appetizer they've just dumped out
- of a freezer and a margarita with the beads on there. You can actually come out and get good food prepared
- here locally at a number of restaurants for the same amount or even less and you're going to pay at
- some of those corporate chains that make our heart hurt. Let's take us to the middle table here, Dave,
- and tell us what's going on with Chef Dempsey. This mushroom stock is still boiling. It looks like they've
- added, is that mustard seeds?
- Quinoa has actually been added to this mushroom stock. The ancient man I was talking about earlier,
- he's got some butter down with some, it looks like he just added sugar and some garlic to that. Apples,
- sorry. He's also got that coffee that I was talking about earlier in a bowl, which makes me think he
- might be using it maybe as a dry rub for the pork perhaps. He's got some corn, looks like maybe he's
- gonna be grilling that in the husk on his flat top grill over here. And then his sous chef over here
- is shredding apples on a box grater.
- And so it looks like we've got several components of a dish here. We've got some quinoa cooking in broth.
- We've got some sauce with apples and butter. And then we've got some more apples being shredded. And
- we've got a dry rub going on over here. All right. And over here on Jake's station, he's got that pork
- that he was searing in that pan. He's got some onions. He's got some mushroom broth in there. He's got
- some bay leaves. He's got some celery.
- He still has some bacon rendering in his other saucepan over here. And then, his sushi over here, it
- looks like he's making some kind of a pesto. He's got the mortar and pestle out, and is that basil in
- there? Okay, yeah, it's like a pesto. It is a pesto. And then, we've also still got... we've also got
- the pork that's been moved over to the flat top over here. And we still have the fruit that's been diced
- up in a bowl over there.
- So yeah, there's all kinds of a flurry of activity and I'm actually going to get out of the way because
- I've been in the way all this last few moments here. Dave, if it's okay with you, I think we, let's
- talk a little bit about the secret ingredient, maybe there might even be a video involved.
- of goats and sheep. About 12,000 years ago, cheesemaking has been documented. Now in Indiana, in the
- late 1700s, we know that people were making cheese. Currently, there are several artisan cheesemakers
- in Indiana, including Capriol, Swiss Connection, Fair Oaks Farm. There's loads and loads of them. Traders
- Point. Now in Indiana, you can get local cheeses made from goat's milk, sheep's milk, and cow's milk,
- ripened cheeses, aged cheeses,
- fresh cheeses all from Indiana by artisan producers. Cheese is the secret ingredient in tonight's Chef's
- Challenge. Let's see what the chefs do with it. All right. Cheese. Is there anything it can't do? Cheese.
- I mentioned before at the start that we've got some exciting auction items for you here. Normally you
- go to one of these things and there's a silent auction. We decided we're going to dispense with the
- silent auction. We're going to do a live auction. I'm sure that there's somebody out here right now
- that would like to sit at one of these seats and eat this delicious food. Am I right? No? I'm not right?
- Is there someone who would like to come down here and sit and eat this delicious food?
- going to start the bidding right now. Only two seats are available and we're going to start the bidding
- at $200. That's how much two seats cost, $200. Who's got $200 that would like to sit and eat this food
- right now? Where are we?
- Or we can do it separately at 100 each. Say you're with a date and you don't really like him that much,
- but you would still like to come down here. One seat, $100. Ma'am, I can tell your body language. You
- might want to get $100. You want a pony up to come sit down here? No, all right. $100. She's got $100.
- $100. And yeah, remember, all this money goes to the community kitchen.
- I know you think that we're all getting paid a whole bunch of this, but we're not. All this goes to
- the community kitchen room. All right, let's start at $50 then. $50 to come eat the food. I got $50
- right here. Is that $50 for one seat, sir? $50 for one seat. Who can do better than $50? $60. $60. $60
- for a seat here. $60. $50 for one seat. We got to get $60 more than this. Come on, folks.
- Last year, I was able to auction off my plate of food. $60 right there. $70. $70 right there. Open the
- balcony. I forgot there was a balcony. What do we got here? You guys have been so quiet and sedate.
- Yell out. What do you got? $75. $80? $80.
- All right, going once. What, what? $100. Where were you when I started this thing? Yes, $100. Exactly.
- Who's going better? Two, where's that? $100 for both. Okay, we got $200 for both seats.
- $200 for both seats. Everyone can beat that. $200 for both seats. Going once. Going twice. $200. Folks,
- come on down. Come on down. But bring the money, too. Yeah. I mean, come on down and bring the money.
- Now, the next thing is we've got a seat at the judges' table. Oh, yeah. We've got a seat at the judges'
- table. You don't only get, there is wine at the judges' table. You get to sit with Jeff Meese and Bloomington
- icon Charlotte Zittlow, and you get to sit right next to Lynn Schwartzberg. So, it's right, I mean,
- this is a, it's a $100 value, they say. I just think sitting next to Lynn Schwartzberg is $150.
- So that would be me. So here's our lovely seat. Who is going to start at $100, $100 to join the judges?
- $100 right here. $125. Right here, $125. $150. $150. $150 right here. $175. And you know what, the great
- thing about this, $175, $200. Who wants $200?
- $200 right there! Not only that, but you know this is going to be on the television and it's going to
- run over and over and over and over. I cannot tell you, I mean people are like, I saw you on CASA, do
- you weigh 300 pounds? Yes, I weigh 300 pounds. You're going to see it every time. What have we got?
- $250? $300?
- Okay, the last I heard was $500 from this lady right here. $500 from this lady right here. No, $200?
- $200, ma'am? Yes? $200. Now she's hiding. $200. $225. Going to the community kitchen. $225. $225 right
- down front. $250.
- Don't get excited in front of me. 225. 250. Where we got 250? All right. All right. 225 going once.
- Going twice. 225 right down front here. To join them. What's your name, sir?
- Oh, are you going to let your date do this? That's awesome. Oh, your other wife. OK, yeah, I wasn't
- trying to blow anything there. I was trying to be polite. No, I'm not dating his wife. Look at that.
- What's your name, ma'am? Doris. Doris. And your charming husband? Arlen. Arlen is about to see. Harlen.
- All right, like Harlen. Harlen, thank you very much. Come on up and join our judges. That's a big applause
- for Harlen right here.
- stepping up. Now, guess what just happened? Harlan doesn't know this, but he's about to be hooked up
- with a new date because now we have an empty bistro seat. So we might as well auction this off now.
- Ma'am, are you ready to bid for this right here? Where was my 200 bid? Right here?
- Let's start at 100 for this seat. $100. $100. All proceeds go to the community kitchen. Right here,
- $100 right here. Anyone want 125? 125. I'm not going to forget the balcony now, I promise you that.
- 125. $100 going once.
- Going twice. Come on down. You get a bistro seat. This may have been Harlan's plan all along. I'm not sure.
- I think she's fine sitting up here. I don't think she even cares. Doris doesn't even care.
- Doris is like, fine. He's paying me either way. I don't care. All right. There you go. All right. Well,
- that was exciting. We've got some more auction items here. This is some spatulas and spoons, a dish rag.
- This is stuff from the Inner Chef, which is a fantastic place, and a beautiful colander. I know what
- this is called. It's called a colander. That's pretty cool. Isn't this nice? All this is from the Inner
- Chef. Yeah, this is a $50. This is a $50 value. So let's entertain some bids, shall we? How much do
- we get for this package here from the Inner Chef? We get $25 for this package. $25? $25 right there.
- How about $30? $30. $30. How about $35? $35, not a penny more. Well, who wants to make this guy seem
- cheap? $35, not a penny more. How about $35.01? Who's $35.01? Right here? $40. OK, $45. What are you
- bidding? That's a very good question. Thanks for paying attention.
- This is a gift package from the inner chef. It's an enameled five-quart colander. It looks like squirt.
- That would have been a funny word. A five-quart colander. A blue Q dish towel. Cooking is not my forte,
- is what it says on the towel. And a three roasty maple. Roasty maple? 45. Thank you, sir. $45. These
- spatulas may or may not have come from Spatula City.
- Who got that reference? All right. It's a weird-out Yankovic reference. Okay. $45. Who gives me $50?
- It's a $50 value. $50. $50. All right. You had done $45, but $50 again is good. That's great. $55. $50.
- Going once. Going twice. $50 to the big round of applause. Thank you, sir.
- He doesn't get that until he ponies up that 50. He was saying not one penny more, so I want to see that
- penny coming out of his money right there. All right, next up. Oh, this is very nice. This is The Farm
- Food, an autographed copy of Chef Daniel Orr's book. This book inspires food lovers to support local
- farmers and craftsmen and is full of great recipes. This is a fantastic book. I happen to have never
- read it. This is fantastic. You're going to love this because I cannot cook.
- And it has been autographed right here. $30 value. Who will give me $25 to this book? $25. $25. $30.
- $30 right here. $30. $35. $35. $30. Going once. Going twice. Ma'am, you've just won this families cookbook.
- $30. Thank you very much.
- I'm going to send over my lovely assistant. She needs your money. All right. And finally, and folks,
- this. I don't know if I can even do this coffee maker justice, but I'm going to try to. This is coming
- from Goods for Cooks. This is the Capresso coffee tea machine. This is the only combination thermal
- carafe and conical burr grinder.
- Now, I didn't know what the heck that meant, but this coffee maker can be programmed to not
- only automatically make the coffee, which any standard run-of-the-mill coffee maker is going to do,
- but it also grinds the beans first. You set the timer, you put the beans in,
- When it goes off, it starts grinding, and you get the freshest possible coffee imaginable. This is a
- $300 value. And I'm going to start the bidding at $200. $200 for this fantastic. And Andrew Apple is
- here, the man who owns Goods for Cooks. Andrew, you can tell me this is worth it, right? Where are you,
- Andrew? He's nodding.
- Who will give me $200, this fantastic coffee maker? Up there, $200. Where are you? Okay, I'm just going
- to pretend I can see you. $200. $250. $250. This is a pretty serious coffee maker. I'm sure if you talk
- to it long enough, it will start your car for you, too. $200. Going once.
- How about 225? Who wants to come in for 225? 225 right there. 225. 250. 250. Where was that at? I should
- have guessed. All right. 250. This guy right here. All right. From Charlie Rich, the silver fox right
- down front. OK. Four people are going to get that reference. All right. There you go. 250. 275.
- 275. 275. Do I hear $300? The value of the machine, $300. 300. Once again, all this money goes right
- to the community kitchen. This machine has been donated. $300. Come on. It's worth it. Harlan, you want
- to make up? $300. Here you go.
- All right, $275. Going once, going twice. Jerry, you just won yourself a serious coffee maker for $275.
- Yeah, we'll just go ahead and leave that right there. When Jerry comes up, you can pick it up right
- here. All right. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I know you've missed him. He hasn't talked for a while,
- so let's go back to Rags. And Rags is going to talk to our judges so we can get a load on what's going on.
- Well, thanks, Brad. First of all, Jeff's over there concentrating on watching the chefs over here.
- But Jeff, I'd like to ask you a couple questions, if you could. Beer, pizza, an iconic community, concerned
- about the environment, pot-bellied pigs, water buffalo. I mean, where do you get this inspiration? You're
- like a Renaissance man, so to speak. I read the local paper.
- I got the water buffalo idea from a story in the Herald Times. Really? I really did. You'd be amazed
- with our little local paper. What's in that? So maybe people aren't really familiar with actually real
- mozzarella cheese?
- And that's exactly because you went, actually you went to Italy, you spent some time there studying.
- I did. I read the story several years ago in the Herald Times about water buffalo. I'd recently bought
- a farm and I was looking for some interesting, unusual livestock angle. That's different. That we could
- grow into. You know, this stuff does not happen fast. I read about
- that the original mozzarella cheese was made from water buffalo in Italy 1,000 years ago. I'd never
- known that before. I'd heard of mozzarella di bufala, but I never knew the story behind it. So I read
- that on like a Saturday morning, and I said to Marie, that's it. That's it. And they're actually, the
- pigs are not pot belly pigs, although they are fat. They're English large black. I'm sorry. No problem.
- Great. But they grew up to about,
- In a couple of years, in a year, they'll get to 600 pounds. So they are a big pig. They were a bacon
- pig in Britain, but it's a breed that's largely fallen out of favor because it's a very fat pig, not
- a lean pig. But those of us who really like pork realize the fat's where it's at. Oh yeah, for sure.
- Thanks, Jeff. You can talk about pigs all night, for sure. Charlotte.
- You've done a lot of things in the community. I've already gone over that between inspiring people to
- cook better and live a better life and also improve their living conditions in Bloomington. What's your
- most fulfilling aspect of your community service? What really makes you feel good? You've done so many
- things. Where's the one that really gets you? I'll tell you. I was elected to the City Council in 1971.
- and we were all involved in trying to get more community participation in local government. And we've
- done that, and I feel really good about that. Amen. Thank you, Charlotte. Thank you. She's done a lot
- for this community, that's for sure. Okay, Lynn, you've seen a lot of things come and go in Bloomington
- as far as the restaurant business, food, what's available at local markets.
- We've got Blooming Foods, can serve all kinds of gourmet things. You can just pick up from the grocery
- store there. All the great chefs. The difference, the diversity of cuisine. Bloomington's a very unique
- community, but why Bloomington? I mean, you've covered the food scene here in Bloomington for quite
- a while. I mean, what makes Bloomington so special as far as diversification and quality of food?
- This kind of hit a maturity point. I've traveled to a lot of towns the size of Bloomington around the
- country and they hit kind of the tipping point as there's a lot of discussion of that and then all of
- a sudden it seems like the floodgates open and everybody wants everything. We all travel more, we all
- read more online and we want it all here and it's being given to us. We're very lucky. I'm sorry. Ah, yes.
- Maybe just a little bit more there. I don't know how much they heard out there. Bloomington kind of
- hit a tipping point, like many other towns of this size across the country. And we read more. We read
- magazines. We watch TV shows. We want everything, and we want it here. And we're getting it.
- And it's great. Makes total sense. Charlotte? I think that the way we've entered into the appreciation of food
- and the appreciation of a number of other things, the outdoor activities, all the things that have changed
- over the last 40 years, all have to do with the community growing and people coming into it and bringing
- new ideas and having traveled, as Lynn said. I think this is all part of the same thing. It's a wonderful
- community, and it's because of the people who've been here. Thank you, Charlotte. That's for sure. If
- you're gonna live in Indiana, I always say you gotta live in Bloomington.
- You know, with all the smells that we're getting away from the fantastic food that's right here.
- So Dave, can you tell us what's going on here on the floor? We'll start over here with Chef Talent and
- explain to us what's going on down here. Okay, over here on Chef Talent station, we've got a ton of
- stuff going on. He has deboned an entire chicken. He's got that on this flat top grill just with some
- salt and pepper and he's pressing it with a sheet pan with a bunch of other pans on top of it. So he's
- got a chicken over here. He's already made some quick grits here in the middle.
- And over here, to the right of the grits, we've got some charred, looks like some red onions and peaches
- in this grill pan. He's also got what looks like it might be a soup going on over here. We've got tomatoes,
- we've got basil, we've got onions and oil, and some kind of, looks like maybe some kind of stock in
- there. And his sous chef, Tony, over here is slicing some bread into kind of thick squares. That's,
- of course, local bakehouse bread. That's the farm bread.
- I see a pressure cooker out, but I haven't seen anything go into it. And I'm guessing at this point,
- if there's nothing in there yet, we're probably not going to be using that. I haven't seen the cheese
- go down yet on Dave's station, but he's got about five different kinds of cheeses out there. So at some
- point, I'm sure that's going to make a disappearance, although I'm assuming there's some in the grits,
- right, Chef? Not yet. So it looks like we've got at least several different dishes or one extremely
- complicated dish going on over here on Chef Tal's side.
- Over here in the middle, with Tom and Jamie, we've got, the quinoa has got some corn in it, some onions,
- I saw some peppers, I'm sorry, some leeks, and then right next to that, what we've got is,
- it looks like a, it's like a creamy apple sweet sauce. Apple and goat bechamel, and a bechamel is kind
- of a thickened cream sauce, you know, and with goat cheese, you know that's gonna be really,
- really good, just on its own. That could be just fondue. Actually, I could just bathe in that.
- He has also taken that pork loin from Fisher Farms and he sliced it thinly and dry rubbed it with that
- coffee, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper. And he grilled that pork on that flat top grill. And it's
- set aside in a pan over there. And now he's got bacon rendering out on that same grill that he cooked
- the pork on. His sous chef, Jamie, right now is slicing peaches.
- She's got some of that local feta on her station as well. So we're seeing goat cheese and feta over
- here in the middle. And so we've got a lot of really nice flavors here going on. Some nice coffee. We've
- got some sweetness with the bechamel. We've got some of this nice quinoa pilaf. So it's going to be
- really nice. And then over here on Jake's station, he's seared that pork in this pan. He pulled it out.
- deglazed the pan and made kind of a quick stock with the pork drippings and some onions and bay leaves
- and some other aromatics. His sous chef has two pans on this flat top over here. One of them is that
- diced fruit mixture. And then what's in the other pan there on the right? Well, I didn't see it go down,
- sorry. There's a lot of stuff going on here. He's got some of that
- looks like some local, looks like some mustard cheese over there. And then he's also got a pesto that
- he made in this mortar and pestle over here. And he's got bacon that he's rendered out. And again, there's
- all kinds of really, really great flavors. I wish you guys could be up here to smell this, because it's
- really, really wonderful. So anyway, we're seeing some really, really interesting, impressive stuff
- down here, especially for the kind of equipment they have to work with and the kind of time constraints.
- I think we should give all these chefs a hand so far, because this is a lot of work. And it's a lot
- of really good work going on. Rags, I'd be interested, I'm sure everyone else here is interested too,
- in exactly what the judges think about what's going on. Maybe they might have some questions for our
- chefs. Yep. Lynn, feel free, if you have time, take the microphone. I'm watching Jake finish up a dish.
- I have absolutely no idea what he's making.
- Jake, you want to film me in? Here. He needs a mic. He needs a mic. We are struggling with these burners,
- so we're trying to make a pseudo cheese sauce towards here at the end. Our quick polenta is not going
- firm up in time, so we are trying to make
- I have to mention, we are giving these guys such a rudimentary kitchen, you will be amazed at the stunning
- food that they produce from these kitchens. It's astounding. If you heard Jake's response, it translates
- as, please leave me alone, I'm cooking. All right. All right. Charlotte? Thomas, what are you doing
- right now?
- Right now I have a quinoa that I've mixed with corn, leeks, a little bit of garlic, salt and pepper.
- I've reduced it in a mushroom stock and I'm going to try and make that into sort of quinoa risotto by
- adding cream and goat cheese. You've got a lot of something going on in the grill here and something
- else that you took off the grill. Yes, I have a coffee infused pork loin that I'm going to be putting
- on top of the bed of the quinoa.
- And then I will drizzle my goat bechamel on top of that. And this is going to be for a dessert that
- I don't want to talk about yet. OK, you don't have to talk about it. Thank you very much. I suspect
- peaches will play a role. Thank you, Charlotte. OK, Jeff, I think Dave probably have a second or two
- for you there. You know him pretty well, so watch out for those knives, baby. Let's start with Tony
- here. Tony, I see you've got some, you've
- Got some, is it cream cheese? Could you tell us about this? Just some goat cheese, herbs, salt and pepper.
- We're actually gonna make a grilled cheese for our soup. Nice. Chef, you got a minute? You're using
- a lot of weight there on the chicken. Could you tell us what that's doing for us? Yeah, this is kind
- of a classic Italian thing they do called chicken under a brick. We don't have a brick, so.
- I'm making do with what I got here, so. We're gonna do that chicken with the, we're gonna make some
- cheese grits. And yeah, that's where we're going. Chicken under six pot, like a Chinese thing. Okay.
- Thank you, Jeff. All right. Thank you, judges. Thank you very much. Thank you, regs. Folks, I sense,
- you see that I have a handful of coupons, there's a t-shirt, and you're like, when's the quiz coming again?
- The answer is exactly right now. So ladies and gentlemen, here's your next quiz question. And this is
- going to be for a $35 Yonko's Little Zagreb gift certificate and a Yonko's t-shirt you can wear in there
- so they don't think you didn't just steal the gift certificate and make it up yourself. You actually
- have a t-shirt, so you're legitimate. Your question is, several years ago, Oliver Winery installed a
- new high-tech bottling line.
- The line can be operated by six people. It fills corks, boxes, and even stacks the finished cases on
- a pallet for shipment. How long does it take for this machine to fully package 75 cases, which is one
- pallet, of locally made wine? How long does it take? Who said 20 minutes? Wrong. All right. Who said
- one minute?
- Superman's winery. Two hours? No. Yes. One hour? No. Who said nine minutes? The correct answer is nine
- minutes. Right over there, nine minutes. Nine minutes to get 75 cases of wine bottled, corked,
- stamped and packed on a palette. Nine minutes, that is unbelievable. Folks, we are getting ready to
- hear the voice once again that means one of our chefs is about ready to quit cooking and plate their
- meal. And that shake would be... Jake Brinchley, you have five minutes. Five minutes for Jake Brinchley,
- ladies and gentlemen. That is the five minute warning.
- Let's do one more quick, since we got a lot of these gift certificates giveaways, give another quick
- one out here. What iconic Bloomington restaurateur is credited with bringing Bloomington its first pizza
- shop not long after World War II? Yes, right there. But who was it? Who was the person who did it? Cafe
- Pizzeria? Dick Barnes is the correct answer. Where did that come from?
- Who said Dick Barnes? Right back there, you win $20 in Nick's English Hut coupons. That may have been,
- yeah, there you go. All right, once again, you're here tonight for the Community Kitchen. And it would
- behoove me to mention the stats about the Community Kitchen once again. In January,
- of this year, the community kitchen purchased the facility at 1515 South Roger Street. It's gonna be
- renovated and it's gonna be the new home of the community kitchen. This purchase was a culmination of
- years of planning, organizing, saving, and making do with limited space. If you've ever been to the
- kitchen now, you know that that place is just jam-packed and you can't move in here. This new facility's
- gonna be fantastic. To get moved in though, the kitchen needs to renovate the facility. Renovation costs
- are expected to be $700,000 to $800,000.
- They've already secured $350,000 of the funds necessary, but still need the balance to get there. When
- the renovations are completed, they will have approximately 1,200 square feet of kitchen and prep space,
- dining room capacity nearly double of what they currently have, a family dining room for families with
- children to have a more intimate family-style meal, private consultation space for referrals and other
- potential one-on-one services, 23 parking spaces, ample bike parking,
- all the food stored on site, they haven't been able to do that for 10 years, appropriate flow of food
- through the building, necessary office and public restroom space, and a stable future for the Community
- Kitchen operations. All this information is in your brochure that you got in your programs that comes
- in. Please take a time to check this out and look at the stuff that Community Kitchen does and how much
- it is needed, this new facility is needed and how you can help. I say this every year when we do the,
- when we do the Bloomington Chef's Challenge is that the community kitchen does amazing work and we're
- going to see more about the numbers and how many meals and all that kind of thing. It would be great
- not to come back here next year because there is no need for the community kitchen. It would be great
- for us to be able to do the Bloomington Chef's Challenge just for fun. But the fact remains is we need
- to do the Bloomington Chef's Challenge. We have to do the Bloomington Chef's Challenge because of the
- great need in our community. So once again, please,
- Thank you for your support tonight at the Community Kitchen. And remember that more support is needed
- throughout the year. Thank you. We have, Jake, we have one minute and 45 seconds to your finish. One
- minute and 45 seconds. So, folks. Can anyone tell me the first bar and restaurant in Bloomington to
- have a sidewalk patio?
- What was that answer? Wrong. Wrong. No, not the scenic view, no. What? No, not the Irish line,
- but very close. Crazy Horse, who said it? Right there, you're the winner, come on. You get a Crazy Horse
- gift certificate.
- But I want you to realize that Lynn tried to win the prize, even though she's a judge. And I'm not sure
- if that's not a breach of conflict of interest here. So, tell you what, Lynn, you and I will go to the
- Crazy Horse and we'll have lunch sometime. Just to prove that you can see the, yeah, I just heard from
- my voice that you buy. I don't know. Joe just said you pay my lunch. That's what, yeah, not me.
- Hi, everyone. How are you doing? We're back here at the Bluetooth Chef's Challenge. We are literally
- seconds away from Chef Jake Brinchley finishing. We're going to hear this again. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5,
- 4, 3, 2, 1. Jake Brinchley is done.
- Jake has five minutes to plate his food up to the judges right now from this point on. And in those
- five minutes, let's do another trivia question. Bloom Magazine. Bloom Magazine has been a great supporter
- of local business and culture. The cover of their first issue featured a local farm family. Featured
- a local farm family. What farm family?
- I can't hear you, but I'm going to say, yes, sir, you are correct. There you go. And you win a gift
- certificate, a $25 gift certificate to the Scholar's Inn Gourmet Cafe and Wine Bar. Okay, we're going
- to, if the camera guys can come by, we're going to try to get an early look at that plate as it comes
- up here from Jake Bridgeley. Dave, can you tell us what's going to be on that plate?
- Well, we've got this pork loin that's been seared off and then is sitting in this kind of stock that
- he's made. We've got, it looks like a cheese sauce over here to the left. We've got some, we've got
- over here on these flat top grills, we've got this mixed fruits. And then there's a mystery pot to the
- right that I didn't actually see what went into there. I'm assuming that the pork loin is going to be
- sliced thinly with some of the fruit as
- with some of the food on top of it and the cheese sauce around it, but we'll see. There's all kinds
- of wonderful smells and flavors going on over here on Chef Frenchly's station. I don't know if you can
- smell this or not, but it's absolutely fantastic. Can you smell it all the way up there in the balcony,
- guys? Got three more minutes left to play here.
- We've got just about coming up in five minutes there. Tom, can you tell us what that looks like over
- there? Well, yeah. He's got his quinoa. It looks like kind of a quinoa risotto over here with like a
- kind of a quinoa risotto pilaf kind of thing over here with some cream and corn and onions and leeks
- in it. Looks like that's done. It's off the heat. He's got some peaches, some apples, and some bacon
- sauteing in a pan right now. He's flipping it.
- He's got that goat cheese bechamel is done, you know, and he's got that pork back on the grill probably
- to finish cooking. He probably seared it off and then finishes it. He's going to finish it off here
- at the end to make sure it goes out nice and hot. He's got some bread cubed up here real roughly. And
- it looks like that's pretty much everything we're looking at over here.
- Over on Chef Talent's station, he's got that thing that I think might be a soup with the tomatoes and
- basil. He ran that through a food mill, which is kind of like a very fine sieve that presses out all
- the solids. He's got some little, looks like, herbed goat cheese sandwiches that maybe are going to
- be grilled. He's got that chicken under a brick, which is, you know, a classical sort of
- Classical sort of Italian preparation where they actually take a chicken and put it under a foil-wrap
- brick. He's mimicked that with a sheet pan with a lot of heavy stuff on top of it. That chicken has
- browned up real nicely, as you see, in that pan. He's got, and like I said, he's got these herb goat
- cheese sandwiches over here, and then he's also got that red onion and peach that he charred in that
- grill pan somewhere around here.
- Again, there's a lot of stuff going on here. And then he's also got these grits that he's added cream
- to. I'm not sure if he's added cheese to those yet, but I'm assuming there's gonna be cheese in those
- corn grits right there. And so one very interesting thing is it looks like every chef has corn out on
- their station, which is a great seasonal ingredient. And I'll take it back to Brad now. Chef Brinsley
- is just about finished plating here. Let's get a real, let's take a look at that. These are fantastic
- food. Look at that.
- Once again, this is the kind of cuisine you're going to be able to see at the Scholar's Inn. The Scholar's
- Gourmet Inn Cafe and Wine Bar, but you know it is at Scholar's Inn. You know what the great place, you
- get half Irish martinis on Thursday, and the food is just exceptional. The staff are great at the Scholar's
- Inn. You cannot go wrong with that restaurant, and you can see why right now. I mean, take a look at
- that. Five minutes.
- And that was the five-minute warning for Chef Dempsey. You may have heard that. So we're going on. I'm
- sorry I got struck kind of dumb by just staring at how beautiful that food is. Now I understand pornography.
- All right, ladies and gentlemen. I apologize for that. I'm really sorry. My daughter is right there.
- It looks like I better start saving therapy. Huh?
- So right now, the chefs are getting up there, the food to the judges. That is an unbelievable sight.
- And Dave, what's going on down there with the... Okay, we're going to go to Rags here, and Rags is going
- to talk with Chef Frenchly and describe what we've got in front of him. You can describe what it is,
- and he'll give you an initial comment. Okay, Jake, you've got to speak right in that mic.
- Tell the guys what you got going here. I'm not going to say this was an easy battle. An easy battle,
- that's for sure. Our burner side, it did not want to cooperate with us today. So we made do with, just
- like a chef is supposed to do. Hopefully, my culinary instructors will be proud of what we did. We made
- do with it. What you have from the bottom up, we originally had some polenta. However, that did not
- want to cook for us today. So what we did instead was we did a creamed corn. I am proud to say that
- we used every single cheese
- in the cooler today. So we're proud about that. Good for your score, for sure. Yeah. So again, it's
- kind of like a cheesy cream corn on the bottom with a basic bechamel sauce. There's flavor with a little
- bit of mustard and a little bit of cardamom. You're going to taste that in there too. Yeah. Then we
- did what we could with the pork to give it a braise. However, like I said, the temperature
- was not cooperating. But I think it's got good flavor. And then on top of that, you have a little bit
- of chutney, which is made with pears.
- peaches, apples, a little bit of crisp bacon, moonstar cheese. I like the texture of moonstar cheese.
- I think the flavor complements the fruit very well, so I think you'll get a nice hint of that.
- Also in the, we have a little bit of basil pesto on top of that, which has a little bit of Swiss cheese.
- A lot of people prefer to use Parmesan. I like to use Swiss. I think the bite's a little bit different.
- It gives it a better flavor. And then some fresh herbs to garnish. Thank you very much. Wow. Okay, just
- stay right here, Jake, because
- initial reaction here from the judges. Let's start out with Jeff. Go ahead. It's delicious, Jake. Thanks.
- What are the cheeses that you used in this dish? Every cheese that was in there. We're just trying to
- go through it again. Moonstar is in the chutney and then the more artisan cheeses you'll find in the
- actual creme de cordon. Okay. Charlotte, take a deep breath from that
- beautiful plate and think of something you need to ask him there. In the chocolate, you included cheese
- and fruits. Which fruits did you include? There you go. Some peaches, pears, apples, and that's it,
- right Josh? It's what? It's some red onion. Yeah, we like to cook with fruit at the Scholars Inn, incorporate
- everything. Thank you. All right, Lynn, here you go.
- Now, what did you flavor your creamed corn with, besides cardamom, you said? Is that it? Yeah. Actually,
- we used a little bit of the... There you go. We actually used a little bit of the braising liquid from
- the pork in there as well. And mushroom stock, chicken stock, had some fresh bay leaf in there as well,
- but you'll taste the aromatics, like leeks, fennel, garlic, so forth. Super. Thank you, Jake Brinchley
- and Josh Miller. From scholars in Gourmet Cafe and Wine Bar,
- That just shows the man's skills, okay? His equipment wasn't working. He's in front of this big audience,
- which is going to be played on bean cat for the next year. No sweat. The guy got it done. The plates
- are absolutely beautiful. You guys, this is what makes chefs real chefs. I'll tell you, this is really
- the restaurant business, because anybody of you who have ever worked in a kitchen in a restaurant here
- understand what we're talking about. Things don't always go right. And he is our very first Chef's Challenge champion.
- So let's have a big round of applause. Jake did a fantastic job there. Fantastic. Wonderful. Got about
- 20 seconds to 15 seconds before, 15, thank you very much. Until the voice from on high signals the end.
- Two, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.
- Chef Jemcee, stop your cooking. All right, let's give away another gift certificate real quick,
- shall we, while we get some plating done here? How about this? What restaurant had a House of Ill Repute
- brothel above the restaurant? Does this mean a house?
- Okay, there's a lot of wishful thinking out there, which I appreciate. Let's try this again. What restaurant
- had a house of ill repute, a brothel above the restaurant, and a bar downstairs for weary railroad workers
- during the 40s and 50s? Right in front of the soundboard. Wait, wait, out in front of the soundboard.
- Yonkos is the exact answer, young lady. That is correct.
- I already gave Bianca's gift certificate away, so how about another gift certificate to Pizza X?
- There you go. Right back there. The person I'm paying therapy for. There you go. Dave, what's it look
- like over there on the plating? Over here on Chef Dempsey Station, we've got that pork down.
- Over that quinoa risotto, we've got that goat cheese bechamel going down over the top of that. Looks
- like he's got two dishes today. His second dish over here, we've just got some bread chopped up. Then
- we've got that sauteed apples and peaches with bacon. And what's going to be the cheese component on
- this dish? Goat cheese sprinkled over the top. And there's going to be some fresh goat cheese sprinkled
- over the top. And then over here in this pan over here, he's got a little reduction. It's a balsamic, herbed,
- garlic reduction. And that's probably going to, I'm assuming that's going to go over this salad over
- here. And there he is sprinkling the fresh goat cheese. And this is Capriol goat cheese from Greenville,
- Indiana. Like I said before, this Capriol is a pretty interesting story. The woman who runs the farm,
- Judy Shad, decided after finishing her master's and doctorate that instead of going into academia, she wanted to
- raise goats, and milk them, and make cheese from them. And that was 20 years ago, and she's
- a now world-famous cheese maker, and we should all be proud to call her a Hoosier. Wow, that's some
- serious information. Dave Koons, everybody, Dave Koons. Working to Google. All right. Hey, Dave, it's
- harder for me to see from over here, and I'm distracted by the food over here.
- Does that look good? Does it look like something that you personally would enjoy? This looks absolutely
- outstanding. Chef Deft, he's done a great job with the colors and textures on these dishes. And over
- here with this crispy coffee rub pork, over this nice, tender-looking quinoa risotto, and this bechamel
- goat cheese sauce that I would absolutely pour all over myself. It absolutely looks wonderful.
- The chef's over there, way down there at the Scenic View restaurant, and I'm not sure that everybody
- here has been there, but if this is the kind of food he's turning on a regular basis, this is a really
- extraordinary new talent in town, and it's another really good... And that is the... Absolutely. Scenic
- View restaurant there on 446, right on the edge of the beautiful Hoosier National Forest, where you
- can see Lake Monroe from the...
- from the dining room around there, or if you want to take your food across the street and not get hit,
- you can actually get in the water with your food. Just please bring the plate back. That's all they
- ask that you do. I'm kidding. Don't do that. Don't do that. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, hey, for
- those of you who know me in a different life, I mean, obviously you know that I am the director of Rhinos
- Youth Center, which is another United Way agency. Thank you very much. Thank you.
- But maybe you also don't know that I'm also one of the house emcees at the Comedy Attic, Bloomington's
- first and only all-comedy showroom. And I'd like to give away two tickets to the Comedy Attic right
- now to our next answer, quiz answer. I haven't cleared this with the owner, but since he's sitting right
- down front, he can't say no now. So here we go. Here we go. What year did Nick's English hut open? Ma'am,
- right here in the middle.
- 1978, 1982, 1972. Five minutes. Yes, sir. 19 what? 1926 is wrong.
- I said 1926 was wrong. 1927, right there. And by the way, Paul Busby did most of these quiz questions.
- So thank you, Paul, for coming up. I'll get you two tickets to the comedy attic here as soon as I pull
- my thing out of my wallet. So there you go, which is the tickets. That's what we're talking about. No,
- go ahead and sit down and we'll do it. I got you right there.
- All right, how are we coming down there, Dave? Rags. We're going to go back up to rags and we're going
- to discuss the next plating. Yeah, we have plates. We have plates come up here in a second.
- Is that right? You ready to go? All right. All right, let's go. Chefs, want to follow me this way?
- He's had a little refreshment here. He's had a rough hour here. Smooth. All right, let's grab your plates.
- Let's bring it up to the judges. And they'll have a chance to ask you a couple questions. Go this way.
- OK. Watch the cord. Looks beautiful.
- Wow. Just hand them down. There you go. And one more. OK. There you go, judges. I think we have one
- more plate coming here. That looks gorgeous. Quite a different plate than Jake's plate in here. There we go.
- and then Thomas, after you present those plates, I need you to tell them what you got here. All right.
- Right over here, sir. There you go, chef. Yep, you're live there. So maybe a brief description of what
- you guys put together here for us. Well, we started off with a quinoa risotto that we... Keep it up.
- There you go. ...slowly reduced with mushroom stock and then later added
- some cream and goat cheese, added corn, leeks, garlic, and onions to that, just for some texture and
- extra flavor. On top of that, we have a coffee-infused pork loin, which was seared in rendered bacon
- fat. Then it's topped with an apple goat cheese bechamel. The bottle that you see on top there is pure
- goat cheese to break up and spread over the plate. Then for dessert, I'll follow it up with two kinds
- of sauteed fruit.
- There's a peach and balsamic vinegar with goat cheese sprinkled on top. I tried to go for the sweetness
- of the peaches to bring out the creaminess. And then opposing that, I have the tartness of the apples
- to bring out a little bit of the creaminess to relax the palate. All right. Jeff, you got a mic right
- next to you there. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thomas, they're going to ask you a question or two
- here. So just chill out. There you go. You're doing great. All right, Jeffrey.
- Bacon for dessert, you're a man after my own heart. Tell us about this, the sauce that the pork is setting
- in there. The quinoa. It's quinoa and is it mustard seed? No, no, that's actually a red quinoa.
- A red quinoa, okay. Got it. Which as many of us, maybe not all of us know, is a Chinese grain that's
- filled with many proteins. It's actually a complete protein
- though it's not a meat. And how many cheeses did you use, Thomas? In that, I only used goat cheese.
- But in the bechamel, I used goat cheese and feta. All right. Thank you. OK. Stay right there, Chef.
- Charlotte, what do you think? OK. In the bechamel, you used goat cheese and feta. And in the dessert,
- you used goat cheese. So goat cheese was your primary use of the cheese. Is that correct?
- I figured I should stick with one goat cheese and try and bring out as many characteristics as I could.
- I see. But the feta help accent, or I feel help accent. Yeah. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Stay right
- there. Yep. All right. Got plenty of time there, Lynn. Go ahead.
- I just have one comment. Anybody who includes bacon in dessert is my kind of cook. Amen, brother.
- Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, it looks like all those quick fire challenges, your help kind of threw at you
- before the competition definitely paid off. You don't see this kind of stuff every day. And we, I mean,
- we've talked about bacon for dessert, bacon in your coffee, bacon for everything. I mean, bacon is a universal
- the universe of food. Great job, Chef. Thank you very much. We really appreciate it. Good luck. Good
- luck to you, too. Thank you, Regs. Thank you, judges. It looks amazing. Hey, very quickly, one of the
- great things about living here in Bloomington and Monroe County is when you do something like this,
- All of a sudden, people start coming up and wanting to help out and give out, too. I mean, after I offered
- up Comedy Attic tickets, all of a sudden, someone from the Bleeding Heartland Roller Girls comes running
- up and says, let's give away two tickets to the Bleeding Heartland Roller Girls, too. So let's do that.
- And we'll couch those tickets with another Scholars in Gourmet Cafe and Wine Bar gift certificate for
- $25. So this is dinner and a Derby for you tonight. Dinner and a Derby.
- And let's find your thing. Okay, here's a good one. The Bira, the Bloomington Independent Restaurant
- Association, this Bloomington Independent Restaurant Association member's wine cellar used to be a part
- of the Underground Railroad. The Scholars in Gourmet Cafe and Wine Bar, you're absolutely correct.
- Okay, so here's what you've done. You worked there, that's great that you know that, and so now I can't
- use that question and give this away. Thank you very much, that's lovely of you. No. That's called cheating
- is what that's called, but thank you very much. No, I've got other questions, that's fine. It's important
- information to have. I think that's very good. So let's try a different question, shall we? Thank you
- for ruining that. All right, here we go.
- The upstairs of this restaurant used to be a brothel. There used to be quite a few here in town.
- But then, of course, the university came in and there was no use for brothels in the town. I'm not even
- sure what that means. This used to be a brothel, the upstairs of this restaurant, but not anymore. You know.
- The scholars in Gourmet Cafe and Wine Bar, absolutely. There you go. Thank you very much. See,
- that was easy. I could just do the same thing. Wow. I didn't realize so many of our local restaurants
- have such a colorful past. I think that's pretty interesting. I'm assuming that Paul Busby has had a
- great time researching this. So there you go. Who knows?
- Who knows what Night Moves is gonna be someday, huh? Who knows? All right. A steakhouse, there you go.
- All right, how are we doing over there, Dave? What do the plates look like? Well, we're still in the
- process of plating right now, but it looks like I'm gonna go out on a limb. I'm guessing we're gonna
- have a kind of a classic tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich, just like mom used to make, except
- the cheese won't be orange this time and the tomato soup won't be from a can. He's got that tomato basil
- soup and these little flat plates, and then he's got these herbs, goat cheese,
- Sandwiches right here on this flat top he's about to put down over here He's got a salad with grilled
- peaches and those charred red onions and he's got some bacon in there because everything goes better
- with bacon and and then And can the chef start taking some stuff up Let me just tell you the other part
- of his dish here He's got some grits the chicken under a brick and he's got this leak and she's aged
- Dutch cheese house fondue over in this pot. And that's probably going to be the entree part of this.
- So what I think we have here is a soup, salad, and entree. So all we need to do is get Christy up here
- to make the dessert. And so we need the dessert portion of this, right, Christy?
- Chef, we're about ready for you. Let me take this moment to... Sorry. Go ahead. Let me take this moment
- to... Task for a round of applause for all of our chefs.
- Absolutely, absolutely. Also, please do not forget about the People's Choice Awards where you can vote
- for your favorite chef of the three here tonight. Do that right out in the lobby. That voting is still
- open. It's going to close very soon. So once again, the People's Choice voting right there in the lobby.
- Who stole my peach? Was that you? All right, there. Awesome. It was my daughter. She came up and stole
- my food. All right, that's awesome. How are we looking over there, Rags? Dave? OK, let's go.
- comes right now. Where'd you go right now? And you can see it. We got sous chef Tony Cooper here presenting
- the first course and one need Tim Clower or Charlotte can hand those to me. There you go. Oops.
- Take these, put them somewhere I need.
- Yeah, go ahead. Great. How is it down there in the bistro seats? Was it worth the money? Especially
- knowing that it's going to serve hungry people here in Monroe County?
- So there might be somebody out here in the audience tonight, or maybe more importantly, watching his
- home one of the 50 times they're going to rerun this on Cats. If you or maybe your company or your friends
- all want to get together and buy a bistro table or buy bistro seats, please contact the Community Kitchen
- because I think all these folks here can attest this is a sublime experience. Am I right? And once again,
- it not only tastes good, but it feels good too. So think about those bistro seats for next year.
- And once again, Martin O'Neill and the staff at CAS has done a fantastic job. They're working very hard.
- This is not an easy thing to film or do. And they promote this thing all night long. So can we give
- them another round of applause for all the work that they do? The technical staff here at the Buskirk
- Chumlee Theater do a fantastic job. And also Blue Ace Media putting all this together. Remarkable.
- I also want to mention that the Bleeding Heartland Roller Girls came up during the break. And ma'am,
- you also get two free tickets to go to the next roller derby bout, which is October 9th, correct? Is
- it next to the center? Yeah, so there you go. Just putting the last plate down. Excuse me, what? Sell
- more stuff?
- I've got this peach for sale right now for the community kitchen. Five dollars. Five dollars. She's
- already stolen one for free. Okay, do I hear ten for this peach? Ten dollars. Ten dollars right here.
- Fifteen. Fifteen for this peach. All money goes to the community kitchen. Fifteen right there. Twenty
- dollars for this peach. Seventeen? Twenty.
- Someone just said 20, sir. Did you say 22? 22, right there. What was that, sir? $30 for this peach,
- ladies and gentlemen. $30 for this peach. Where are you guys when I'm doing rhinos fundraisers? $30,
- going once, going twice. Sir, come on up here and give me your $30 and take the peach. Come on, yeah.
- If you're going to spend $30 for this peach, I've been rubbing my fingers all over. Where's the money,
- dude? $30? Come on. $30? Now? Now. Now. I'll gladly pay you on Tuesday for a peach today. Do we take
- Visa? Tim, where are you, buddy?
- You'll vouch for him? That's my neighbor over here. All right, we'll go, we'll go. Okay, Greg's. You
- guys ready? All right. Okay, Chef, a brief description of what we presented here. Okay, so where we
- started our first course, initially when we started talking, we thought we would do
- We're going to try and do three courses. So we thought we would do soup, salad, our salad soup, and
- then an entree. So it worked out. We got to do that. So in the first course, the cheese that we're featuring
- is the Swiss connection feta. With that, we did a grilled peach and red onion spinach salad. Got a little
- bit of candied maple glazed bacon on there.
- So that's what you have for your first course. Second course, we have a tomato soup, kind of a cream
- of tomato soup, classic cream of tomato soup, with a Caprio Farms basil goat cheese grilled cheese,
- because you have to have grilled cheese with tomato soup or tomato soup with grilled cheese. So that's
- what we did. And then for the entree, I took the chicken, broke the chicken, boned out the legs and
- thighs, and did the breast, boneless breast. Threw them on the grill, cooked them under brick.
- because I wanted to do the leg meat, leg and thigh meat, as well as the breast meat, because I think
- the dark meat's the best, but a lot of people like the white meat. So I wanted to give a little combo
- of the both. On the underside of that, we've got the cheese grits. We used the Colby, the Colby Jack,
- and the farmer's cheese, because they're both really, really creamy,
- and they work really good in grits. And then for the sauce, I did a leek and, I can't remember the name
- of the cheese, it's just a really dry cheese from Swiss Connection, almost similar to like a Parmesan.
- So I did like a leek and Parmesan type fondue. So I used some melted leeks and a little bit of mustard,
- cream butter, and a bunch of that cheese. So, enjoy.
- Jeffrey I just want to make one comment before I let start I found out what the secret ingredient was
- I was sworn to secrecy not to tell anybody but anyway one of the first things that me and the other
- guy said I bet you David talent does a grilled cheese sandwich because the things you do with simple
- things is so amazing anyway go ahead
- Well, first to comment, this is the kind of salad I like, Dave. It's got about two leaves of spinach
- on it. It's fast food. Really? Three courses in what? An hour. I don't know what to ask you, Dave. I
- was very impressed that you made this beautiful soup in that quick. Where did the tomatoes come from?
- Do you know? They're from the larder, I guess. Who brought the tomatoes? They're from Blooming Foods,
- I believe.
- Are they Teresa Bertels? They might be, I don't know. How many, so cheeses, Dave, you used four cheeses,
- goat, the dry parm, the feta, and the... I used three in the entree, the goat cheese, the feta, so yeah,
- we used four cheeses, so. Okay. Thanks, Dave. It looks great. Thank you. All right. I wondered if there
- was cheese. David, is there any cheese in the soup?
- No cheese in the soup. No cheese in the soup. Okay. So you decided to use chicken and tell us again
- about exactly what you did with the chicken. The chicken boned it all out, a little salt, pepper, just
- a tiny little bit of the chili powder and threw it on the flat top, on the skin, on the brick in order
- to render out that skin and make it crispy. And then we flipped it over and just cooked it kind of all
- the way through like that.
- And there's cheese it with the leeks and the salt. And then I use the, that dry. That whatever it is.
- The really dry cheese. In the, with the fondue I did some melted leeks through a little bit of Dijon,
- some pepper, salt, a little bit of butter and cream. And then finish it with the cheese and a little
- bit of black pepper. Okay. And then we've got the Colby and the farmer, the farmer style cheese.
- In the grits. The really creamy cheese is in the grits. Okay. Thank you. There you go, Lynn. You got
- something for David here?
- How did you manage your time? Did you make all three dishes at the same time? Did you assign one out
- to your sous? How did you utilize your hour to come up with three completely different dishes? Before
- we started, depending on what, no matter what the ingredient was gonna be, we were gonna do a salad
- and a soup, regardless. So as a matter of when we got up here, we just started talking about it.
- Tony said, I'll start working on the soup. So he took that course.
- He started doing all the cutting and chopping first, because I knew I would have to deal with the protein.
- So I figured going third with what was up here, that the chicken would probably work better than the
- shrimp or the trout, if that's what was left. So that's kind of the way we went. I would take care of
- the protein and get that rolling. He would do all the cutting and chopping, and then we'd kind of meet
- in the middle and go from there. All right. Thank you, Chef. Wonderful. Thank you.
- Thank you guys. One more round of applause for all three of our chefs here this evening. Truly remarkable.
- And another round of applause for Cheese, please. Another round of applause for Cheese. Yes. And now
- I'd like to throw back real quick to Rags, who'd like to talk about something near and dear to all of
- our hearts.
- Yeah, I mean, you see the comments that we had. Jake over there had problems with his technical equipment
- and still came through. We got the new upcoming chef over here who was really creative with stuff that
- we haven't seen here on the stage before. And he got David Talent kind of throwing everything together,
- very simple comfort food. He showed that creativity and the passion, all these guys, the creativity
- and passion. That kind of shows what Bloomington's about. And one thing that we have here in Bloomington,
- There's several different outlets, so you can go ahead, and especially youngsters out there, especially
- watching these things on BCAT, hopefully in the next several months. There's a lot of schools out there
- to help you guys out. You've got passion, you've got creativity, you love food, and you love local food.
- We've got the Hoosier Hills Career Center. We've got, for the kids, something to get started, so they
- realize there is a future in this industry. It's a great industry. I mean, I've done really well in
- it. Jeff Meese has, too, and all these people are on the board, and the judges.
- They're very vibrant in how they feel about food in Bloomington. Then you've got the Ivy Tech people.
- I think we have a group of them up top. They're young up-and-coming chefs that have a future in this
- business also. And hopefully they stay here in this community. If not, they take the love and the passion
- that they've learned here in Bloomington and take it to wherever they go. And also we have the Bloomington
- Cooking School down on the square by Goods Incorporated. In case any of you people out there want to
- take a quick little class,
- Jan runs that, it's a wonderful thing. Anyway, as I was saying, it's about creativity, it's about passion,
- it's about Bloomington, it's all about local. So there you have it, thank you. Maybe a round of applause
- for all of our local restaurants, eateries, watering holes, taco trucks, whatever they are. I've been
- eating in this town for over 20 years and I can tell I'm all the man I am because of what's going on
- right here.
- in Bloomington, Indiana. Folks, once again, I've said this before, I'm gonna keep saying this, the reason
- we are here tonight is for the community kitchen and for the folks in the booth, let everyone ready,
- I'd like to present to you some more information about the great work that is done at the community kitchen.
- Kitchen, board members of the Community Kitchen, and supporters to please stand right now. If you're
- on the staff of the Community Kitchen or on the board of the Community Kitchen, if you could please
- stand, be recognized for the work that you do.
- of us who work in the nonprofit sector know that sometimes this isn't fun and there's not a lot of money
- in it, there's not a lot of chance for advancement or raises or any of that kind of stuff, but what
- we do do is we sleep really well at night and the folks at the community kitchen should sleep really
- well because they do fantastic work and I would please like you to give them one more round of applause.
- Vicki Pierce, the executive director to Tim and everyone down. Fantastic, fantastic work. Yes, Tim,
- Tim, there you go. Tim Flower. All right, Dave, if you could, can you please thank our sponsors again
- for us one more time? Because this would not happen without their help. Yeah, I want to thank all of
- them again. Cisco, Blooming Foods, United States Food Service, Fine Print, Gouldy and Sons,
- Relish, Green and Schultz, Attorneys in Law, WFIU, Oliver Winery, The Bloomington Herald Times, Goods
- for Cooks, The Inner Chef, and the staff at the Busker, Chumley and Katz. They make all this possible.
- I also want to thank all of our local farmers who have provided so much wonderful bounty. And of course,
- And last but not least, this event would not happen and it would not be a success without the work of
- all these amazingly talented chefs who have been up here all night. And also, most importantly, without
- all of you for coming out and supporting and being part of such a great, great cause. I want to thank
- you all. We really appreciate it.
- This time, the voting is still finishing up. We've got just a few more minutes to go. If we can, can
- we bring all our chefs and our sous chefs back out right now? If you're back there, will our chefs come
- back out, please? You can see how much pull I have with the chefs here, because they just came running
- the minute I asked if they could all come back out.
- Yeah, so if we can have all the chefs out, please. We'll send Tim to go get them because obviously,
- there we go. I do. And once again,
- We've talked a lot about the chefs, but we haven't talked about the sous chefs that much I'm sure that
- the chefs are going to tell you that they could not have done this without the sous chefs like Tony
- Cooper and Jamie Buck and Josh Miller The chefs get all the glory and all the money and the sous chefs
- sit there and do all the work So we want to thank them all for doing all that Folks have you had a good
- time tonight?
- I think now might be time to announce the People's Choice Award winner And it's me thank you very much
- Tim we have a gift certificate for our People's Choice Award winner Tim Clare once again is gonna get
- our President a $30 gift certificate to goods all right
- And this year's People's Choice Award winner is Thomas Dempsey. A standing ovation. Look at that. Hey,
- Thomas. Congratulations. Congratulations. Hey, turn around. Let's get the audience here. Regs, won't
- you find out what Thomas thinks about this? Here we go. Wow.
- That's awesome. It's incredible. I know it sounds really odd, but how do you feel right now? I feel
- incredible. I don't know. I feel like the underdog. Hey man, that's what America's about, you know?
- I mean, you're cooking up a storm over there. Beautiful plate. The inspiration just came from, you just
- came out here and started doing it, and the bacon fat definitely helped. Right? Okay, let's look at
- it this way. Okay, you're really successful. What was your biggest fear?
- when you walked out here on stage? Well, five minutes after I walked out, my shoe came untied. I really
- thought I was going to trip. Did the dog have to eat your homework also? The shoe's untied. Jamie, you
- did a fantastic job, too. Why don't you say a few words, let us know how you feel about this competition.
- And being in a role reversal here, because usually, you're the executive, you're chef, and you're the
- sous. How'd that work? Let's kind of turn to the audience here so they can see a little bit. Go ahead.
- Hold the mic up. There you go. I'm just really excited. And I'm so proud of Thomas. And this is something
- he really wanted to do. So that's why I told him he could be the chef. I'd be his soup. So I'm just
- really excited. I've got one question, Janie. Because chef over here said he was practicing all week
- long. Just by chance, did he practice with Ain't Cheese this week? No, we didn't at all. We kept thinking
- it was going to be fruit or vegetable.
- Yeah, well, we got all these great local cheeses here. We kind of think about this as we're playing
- out the competition. Like I said, I had absolutely no idea until we showed up today, but you guys did
- a fantastic job. Thank you. We had so much fun. Congratulations. Jamie will be very proud. Thank you.
- One more question. Was there an ingredient maybe that you really feared? Is there something you don't
- like to cook with or something that isn't your specialty?
- Well, I really thought that soy might have been an option, and I just felt that can go so many different
- ways. I didn't know how to accent soy itself. So I really feared that that could have been what it was.
- Yeah, where did you get all of your talent from? Did you go to CIA? I'm sorry I didn't get your background
- there. Well, really most of it's just been family, traveling a lot, going through different region to
- region. But my official training is from Ivy Tech here in Bloomington. See, there you go. What'd I tell
- you guys? What'd I tell you guys?
- There you go. All you people out there watching in the middle of the winter, and you're watching this
- in the middle of the night, said, you get some inspiration from guys like this. Because if he can do
- it, you guys can do it, too. Here's all you Ivy Tech guys out there. Congratulations. All right. We're
- going to move on here. The judges put in their, is the judging final? All right, Bradley. Here we go.
- All right. Just so everyone know.
- Everyone knows about the taste of Bloomington. Every year the taste of Bloomington each year. This year
- the taste of Bloomington raised for the community kitchen and for the Hoosier Hills Food Bank $8,000
- a piece. And tonight you have raised over $15,000 for the community kitchen.
- We're still waiting on the tabulation for the Bistro champion, but we do have the winner from the Chef's
- Challenge 2010. But we're going to wait until we get the Bistro seats and get all those votes tabulated.
- So in the meantime, we have given away everything. You know this is, I don't know if you guys have seen
- this, this is going local week here in Bloomington. We still have some events coming up.
- Thursday, the King Korn film screening, King Korn will be screaming, but the screening is from seven
- to nine at Rachel's. On Friday, the 10th, Sustained IU Day in Dunmetal all day long. Saturday, the 11th,
- Bobby Lancaster performance at Barefoot Kids at 10.30 a.m. Also on Saturday, Panache Dance Fitness Sampler
- at Panache Dance from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. And then that night, next Saturday,
- When you're watching this, it will have been on Saturday the 11th, the Christa de Tor CD release right
- here at the Busker Chomi Theater at 8 o'clock, and then the Going Local Week grand finale on Saturday
- the 11th at the Bishop from 6 p.m. to close. So all those are the events.
- And also don't forget that in your brochures, you'll be able to see exactly how this judging was done.
- We're going to take a look at that. And also in your brochures, you'll find information about this year's
- United Way campaign. Please take a look at this. Please keep this out of your program. Take a look at
- this and support the United Way this year more than anything. Your support is needed. All right.
- All right. We have our winners, ladies and gentlemen.
- We have the bistro champion. These are from the judgments from the folks here at the bistro table. And
- it's another gift certificate. To goods. And your winner from that is Dave Tallent.
- So before we name the 2010 Bloomington Chef Challenge winner of the Golden Spatula direct from Spatula
- City, USA, our judges are going to have a chance to talk to the chefs one more time before we name your
- winner. Go ahead, Lynn. Jake, it seems like the secret ingredient posed a big challenge for you. That
- was my observation.
- You don't cook with cheese much. Well, being a French chef, I kind of cook with a lot of cheese. No,
- I wanted to make sure that we incorporated cheese and gave you different textures. I wanted to use all
- of the cheese and really make that the focal point. You were very successful at that. Thank you very
- much. Glad to hear that. Thomas, I was impressed with your knowledge of ingredients, especially when
- you explained quinoa to the audience.
- told me that you know what you're about in the kitchen, and you were new to me, so I'm very impressed.
- Very impressed. Thank you. I don't know if I have a question. I'm very glad you brought your own plates,
- though. It was a great touch. Thank you. All right. Charlotte. Oh, my goodness. Let's go back this way.
- There you go, Charlotte. You have David's got the mic now, so go ahead. David has the mic.
- You decided beforehand that you wanted to have three courses. That was a big challenge for you, but
- why did you do that? We just kind of wanted to push ourselves and kind of challenge myself. Challenge
- yourself. Yeah, and my sous chef. And you brought your dishes so you could do it. It was wonderful.
- Yes. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you.
- Yeah, you've been cooking, I don't know how long, but it was a very creative thing. You made some very
- creative foods today. How did you decide to use coffee on the pork? Actually, the Javanese pork is something
- that I've been doing for a couple of years now. Normally, I do it with a fruit reduction to kind of
- balance out the bitterness of the coffee. Similarly, I do a tea with any sort of poultry, duck, chicken.
- I find that coffee cuts deeper into the meat though, so whenever I'm using a red meat or something other
- than poultry, I'll use coffee. It was really, really interesting. Thank you. And Jake, I think it was
- brilliant that you couldn't get the polenta quite to work.
- And then you came up with this cream corn and cheese mixture. Explain. That was fast thinking, also.
- But I can say it was delicious. It was delicious. Well, I think cream corn is one of my favorite things.
- We have it on the menu at the restaurant. So we just got lucky to have some great product. The corn
- was so sweet and nice. I think it complemented kind of the sharpness of the cheese. So it was an easy
- brainer for us. It worked very nicely. Thank you very much. I'm glad to hear.
- Thank you. Jeff, it's your turn. Guys, as you know, and for people who have been here before, I got
- chosen as a judge to fill Steve Mangum's seat. And if you remember Steve, he was the hard ass. So I'm
- just going to say, guys, it was a fantastic meal. Thank you so much. You did a great job. All right.
- That's it.
- And by that, Jeff, you mean tough donkey, right? Tough donkey. That's what you were saying. Tough donkey,
- right? Yeah. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, I've just been informed of your winner. And I've also
- been informed that this was the closest of any of the Bloomington Chef challenges from the judges right
- now. This is quite literally minute points separated the three
- And so, Tim, if you would like to take the golden spatula over to our chefs and award the 2010 Bloomington
- Chef's Challenge Grand Prize Golden Spatula Trophy made right here in Bloomington, Indiana to Chef Dave Tallent.
- Once again, you've thrilled Bloomington with your great culinary skills. It's a fantastic competition.
- All you guys did a fantastic job. You're a great inspiration to all of us. Dave, I don't know, two times
- in a row, is this a dynasty? I don't know, but I know I can sleep tonight, so that'll be good. But yeah.
- Thanks to everyone that came out. Looks like a larger turnout than last year. So that's the most important
- thing about this event. The money that arranges for the community kitchen. So thank you everyone for
- coming out. Thank you, David. Thank you, Chef, very much. All right. Dave Towne, everybody. One more
- time for all three of your chefs here this evening. For your judges.
- Can we get a mic over here to Tim, because Tim would like to say some parting words for us before we
- let you all go. Thanks everyone for coming. It's been a great event. I've just got some thanks that
- I'd like to pass along. The first, of course, is to the chefs. I know some of this is going to be somewhat
- redundant, but it's really a big thing for them to come out.
- from their restaurants one night and show us their skills. Okay. Watch your back with this crew, Tim,
- watch your back. You're gonna dump some Gatorade on me or something. I'd also like to thank the judges,
- Charlotte and the rest of the crew for giving up their time.
- There's a lot of volunteers that are involved in this that are kind of behind the scenes. You saw some
- of them serving hors d'oeuvres and serving the bistro seating. We couldn't really do all this without
- them. So I'd like a round of applause for them. And then we have kind of a little hodgepodge of a local
- community committee group
- that helped me put this together. It's made up of Jim Becker, who's on the board of Community Kitchen,
- Joe Throckmorton, who is the voice of God. Joe said that this one came out dreamy for him. I think this
- is how he wanted it to come off. And just so you know, he's got it down to a minute, what takes place up here.
- Lynch Wurzburg, Rags, Charlotte Zietlow, Dave Koontz from Blooming Foods, your emcee, Brad. They've
- all been a big part of this. Then also, you probably noticed as you came in, the Growers Guild and Local
- First Indiana. The reason that we invited them to be a part of this
- Is because the community kitchen gets a majority of its support from people here in the community hence
- the name and it's a way for us as an agency to kind of give back to those people if you will and.
- The reason we came up with this event is a good fit for the kitchen because even though our staff don't
- have the plethora of things they had to choose from, it's basically what they do each day, Monday through
- Saturday, year round, even on holidays, is they come up with food for people based on what they have
- to work with. And when I went around collecting food for this, I of course went to the farmer's market
- and everyone that I asked
- is happy to give of what they have. Even in the case when some of them, you know, right after they gave
- me the last of the okra that they had to sell, someone came up asking for it. They were happy to give
- and be a part of the event and support us. And incidentally, I just heard recently that our farmers
- market this past Saturday surpassed 10,000 attendees.
- And I think that says a lot about our community, not only that local people support the kitchen, but
- that local food and local businesses are really at the forefront. We had some big sponsors, WFIU and
- the Herald Times both provided lots of free advertising for us.
- Cisco food, US food, Blooming Foods provided the pantry that you see. Anything that farmers weren't
- able to provide, Blooming Foods provided for us. And then only two more groups. One is the Board of
- Community Kitchen who help us
- Pull this together and then also most importantly the staff of community kitchen many who have been
- helping in the background here tonight You know, we're really fortunate to have people that stick around
- for a long time at community kitchen and help us do what we do we serve over 500 meals a day on average
- about 60% going to children and
- You know, as a community, we should be proud of the efforts we're able to do there. So thank you all
- for coming out. And just very quickly,
- Once again, we want to thank Cisco, U.S. Food Service, and Blooming Foods for being table sponsors.
- This would not have happened without those three, the major sponsors we have. Thank you very much. From
- Martin, O'Neill, and Katz for all the work that you've done. Thank you. Once again, to Joe back there
- in the booth, to the folks here at the Busker Chumlee Theater, to Paul Busby, and amazingly, and the
- heart and soul of this operation is Tim Clower, who's just here. This doesn't happen without Tim. That's the guy.
- because he works on this all year long. Thank you very much. Thanks for Rags and David Koontz. I'm Brad
- Wilhelm. Thank you. Have a nice tomorrow.