- Please take your seats. Tonight's competition is ready to begin. Please silence your electronic mobile
- devices. Welcome to the 2011 Community Kitchens Chef's Challenge.
- Welcome to the stage, your master of ceremonies for tonight's event, Brad Wilhelm. Thank you. Good evening.
- Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. No, no. Thank you. Thank you.
- Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good evening, and welcome to the fifth annual Bloomington
- Chefs Challenge. My name is Brad Wilhelm. I'm your lovable and affable host, and I'll be with you for
- the next six or seven hours or so. I'm assuming some of you are just going to stay after and listen
- to me talk. That's what I planned on doing. But let's get right into this.
- Let's welcome my co-host, first of all, from Nick's English Hut. I want you to please welcome Greg Ragsrago.
- And now I want you to please welcome the man on the scene. The man is going to let us know what's going
- on right here, Mr. David Koontz.
- Once again, this is the fifth annual Bloomington Chef Challenge. Does anyone not know what we're doing
- here this evening? Anyone just wander in off the street? Now, for those who don't realize, what's going
- to happen is this is going to show on Cats about four o'clock in the morning sometime. There's going
- to be some bleary-eyed folks looking at their TV going, what is this and why is Rosie O'Donnell talking to me?
- So for those folks, what this is, if you've seen the program Iron Chef, that's what this is about. You're
- going to get three local chefs who have won the opportunity to be here to compete for the coveted Golden Spatula.
- Coveted Golden Spatula, you, the people in this community voted, over a thousand votes came in to pick
- the three contestants who are gonna be here tonight to compete for this honor. But the great thing about
- this, you're gonna have the folks who are down here who ponied up the money are gonna get to eat this
- fabulous food that they're gonna cook along with our judges and me. The rest of you are gonna get to
- smell all this great food. So good for you. And the rest of you who are watching this,
- at two o'clock in the morning. We're going to be able to suggest some great places you can order local
- food to do that safely while you're watching this, because you're going to be hungry by the time this
- is over. But the great thing about all this brouhaha, this celebration, this gala, is that every bit
- of the money that you've paid to be here and that you've donated goes to the community kitchen of Monroe
- County. That's why we're here. But let's very quickly
- I have to tell them that my family from Spencer made it, okay. That wasn't fair. I don't have any family
- in Spencer. Dave, can you tell us who else made this possible? I think I can tell you that, Brad. Some
- of the other sponsors we have tonight, actually all of them are... Okay, we've got Nick's English Hut
- over there on Kirkwood. We've got the City of Limiton, Indiana.
- You know, how can you not applaud that? We've got Gunthorpe Farms in LaGrange, Indiana. Goods for Cooks
- over on the square. Got Bluefin Seafoods. Shout out for Steve Vulcan. We've got Sodexo. We've got Fine
- Print. Sorry. We've got Relish as a sponsor tonight.
- We just keep applauding. Yeah, that's a good idea, yeah. Cisco. Trial lawyers Green and Schultz. Got
- US Food Service. And. We have the Herald Times online. And WFIU Public Radio Earth eats.
- And I also want to say that we have a lot of local farmers who have donated lots and lots of local produce.
- And I want you all to do, yes. Big shout out to all of our local farmers. This is Locals First Week,
- correct? This is Locals First Week right here in the state of Indiana.
- And if you're watching this at a different time, this is also local's first week. So whatever you do,
- it's always local's first week. Whichever week you are watching this, you should go out and buy something
- local. Yeah, that's exactly correct. Now, yeah, one more time. This is also going to be interactive.
- You don't have to worry that you're going to disrupt our proceedings. If you say something off color,
- we'll take you out and have you beaten. But let me say this right now. What you're going to have?
- You're gonna have your three contestants with their sous chefs. They're gonna be whipping up, but they're
- gonna have, there's gonna be a judging team. There's judges. This isn't a free ride. Someone is gonna
- have to judge them, and Rags is gonna tell us who those judges are. Yes, we have our distinguished judges.
- We're about ready to enter the stage. We've got David Talent, Charlotte Zitlow, and Lynn Schwartzberg.
- Thank you, judges. Thank you.
- Charlie, you must be where the hat is. There you go. You guys go ahead and take a seat. Chef David Talent
- is a chef and owner of the Restaurant Talent and defending champion. I don't know if you guys remember
- that from last year. We're very lucky to have this gentleman here in Bloomington. Buys as local as he
- can from all you local farmers out there. He has been a James Beard award semifinalist, which means
- he's a really good chef recognized all around the country.
- He studied at the Culinary Institute of America and feels the key for a chef to win, listen to these
- chefs over there, is to keep your cooking simple and stay true to your personal style. And
- this is exemplified last year when he made a grilled cheese tomato soup. I don't know if you remember
- that. It was a fabulous, fabulous presentation. He used everything local and it was just delicious and
- chicken under a brick also. So you don't have to do frogwa, just make things taste good. Charlotte Zitlow,
- I think we all know,
- Monroe County icon and semi-legend, or maybe a full legend. She founded Goods Incorporated in 1973 with
- Mary Lynn Schultz, which is now Goods for Cooks on the Courthouse Square. We shop there. I hope you
- guys shop there too. They've got some great stuff for you. For all you cooks out there, that's the place
- to go. She's created and administers food works with the Winneway House, and she has helped usher in
- and shape the Bloomington culinary scene by bringing new cooking products
- to the community and fostering a local interest in the culinary arts. Before she was here, it was all
- peanut butter jelly sandwiches and bacon, you know? She's been active in Monroe County politics for
- more than 40 years, serving as Bloomington City Council President, as well as member of the Monroe County
- Commissioners. She's also served as Executive Director of the Monroe County United Way. Thank you, Charlotte.
- And then Lynn Schwartzberg, I'm sure many of you know from her food columns.
- for the Herald Times. She's a gourmet cook and actually she was just a judge today in Connorsville,
- Indiana in a barbecue contest. She knows what she's talking about. She's been the manufacturer's
- representative for several housewares companies. She's worked in the coffee and food industry since
- 1978. Includes Stinset Goods incorporated with Charlotte and the 2-Bit Rush, which is an espresso bar
- in Bloomington. In 1978, it was one of the very few establishments of such in the Midwest.
- Linda's in charge of cooking classes at Goods for a number of years and had an opportunity to learn
- at the side of many creative chefs. So our distinguished judges here have great taste buds and know
- what they're talking about. So we'll hand it back to you. Thank you. Just very quickly, for those of
- you who've seen me in my other life when I worked at the comedy club and I say that I've been called
- a Bloomington treasure by a prominent local woman, I then usually say it was my mom,
- and she had been drinking. That's the joke. But the real person who said that about me is Charlotte
- Zitlow. And I want to thank her for that. And she had been drinking. And to Lynn Schwartzberg, Lynn,
- I am from Connorsville, Indiana. And I am sorry. And finally, we want to recognize, once again,
- Dave Tallott, who's
- This is the fifth annual Golden Spatula, and Dave has nine or 10 of these at home. So if you want to
- go ahead and stand up once again and be recognized. There you go. All right. Now, also, if you've seen
- the show, The Iron Chef, or you've been to one of these Bloomington Chef Challenges before, you know
- we have a secret ingredient. The chefs you're going to have, they're
- The chefs are going to have approximately an hour, let's say. They're going to have an hour to cook,
- but they're going to have a secret ingredient that they're going to be able to see. We want to make
- sure we don't have any chefs behind my shoulder. All right. In previous years, the secret ingredients
- have been apples, sweet potatoes, corn,
- And last year, of course, was earthworms. Oh, cheese. Cheese, sorry. Cheese. Looks very similar on my
- page. Are you raising the roof on cheese? Is that what you're doing, sir? Cheese! Yeah! Yeah! Sad,
- sad man. But Tim Clower from the Community Kitchen, who put all this together, is right now. Yes.
- going to reveal to us tonight's secret ingredient. Squash! And a gasp comes up from the crowd on squash.
- Dave, do you have any information about squash? Just a little tidbit. I'm going to be going to you for
- squash information all night long, but if you've got just a little something about squash,
- Just give me a little something right now. Right now, you know, a lot of people talk about winter squash
- and summer squash, and they think, well, summer squash is in season in summer, and winter squash is
- in season in winter. Actually, when they say winter squash, what they mean is that the squash is more
- hardy, and it will overwinter for you. You can hang out and put it in your cellar, pantry,
- So if you want to hang out and party with your squash in the pantry or your cellar. There is also a
- game called squash, which nobody in the whole world knows how to play. And that's another thing, Brad.
- Is that on Xbox? It's like a cross between rugby and cricket. You're right. No one knows how to play
- that. All right. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you to our first contestant.
- She is the co-owner of the Feast Bakery Cafe. Please welcome Erica.
- Erica is accompanied by her sous chef, Anthony Gabriel.
- Eric is the first female contestant that we've had here so far. Now, to be fair, in previous years,
- we did not do any sort of testing or blood work, but we can be pretty sure that Eric is the first female.
- Eric is the first female. Just to be fair. Rags, can you tell me some more non-upsetting information?
- Yeah, she hopes to bring a bit of femininity to the competition as the first female chef ever to compete.
- She has no formal training but believes she can use the freedom to her advantage. She doesn't
- feel constrained by rules and traditions that formal training can create. She's from the school of hard
- knocks, so to speak. But she opened up her first restaurant when she was 19 years old, so that says a lot.
- The first restaurant is called Harvest Moon Delicatessen in Michigan. She is originally from Ann Arbor,
- Michigan. Yay for Michigan. And she is hoping for peaches or squash and will be fine with anything though
- as a secret ingredient. Anthony has worked around town. He's from Bloomington. He's worked around town,
- worked for Chef David Town for a little bit. Also, the restaurant, I don't know if you've been to it
- yet, at Henderson and Hillside.
- is they feature tamales, fresh salads, fresh soups, a lot of organic and local material go in there.
- They also have a coffee bar. And you might know them from being at the farmer's market with tamales.
- They're famous for tamales. Erica and the people at the restaurant firmly believe in buying local and
- buying organic.
- and having high quality food. So all of you haven't been there, you really need to go check it out.
- It looks like a little neighborhood restaurant on the corner there of Henderson Hillside. Fabulous food.
- Anyway, that's Erica. There you go. All right. All right, we're going to wait for the countdown where
- Erica and her sous chef are going to have the chance to go pick out their ingredients and get started.
- We're waiting for that voice right now. And the chef will begin in 10, 9,
- 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Begin. Yo. And here we go. The fifth Daniel Bloomington Chef Challenge is underway.
- Yeah. She's got the green flag.
- And just so everyone realizes, we are staggering the times. It's not like some of the other shows you've
- seen where everyone cooks at once. We're giving everyone a chance. There's a 10-minute interval between
- all the different chefs. This way, they can finish and plate and present to the judges in a staggered
- amount of time. And so we're going to give you right now a little bit of a video to explain who Erica
- Yochum is and what she does so very well.
- We're in a feast bakery cafe with Erica Yocum, co-owner and chef, our first female chef competing in
- the Chef's Challenge. So Erica, what do you bring to this position that you've come to in life? You're
- the owner of a cafe, you're the first woman on the stage at the Chef's Challenge. What brought you to
- this place? I think it was a natural evolution from owning my own cafe in Michigan. Being part of the
- farmer's market gave us a great customer base to start this cafe with. The neighborhood has embraced us
- We thought we'd have seven employees, and now we have 30. So it just happened. Wonderful employees at
- that. Do you have any concerns about the secret ingredient? Secret hopes? Dreads? Anything like that?
- You know, at first I think we were trying to figure out what the secret ingredient would be, but now
- we're going to wing it and know that it's going to be delicious. Whatever it is, we'll work with it.
- Now the kitchen here at the Chef's Challenge, as you know, is very primitive and you're not allowed
- to bring electric tools or all kinds of fancy equipment. How do you think you're going to approach that?
- I think it'll be fine. We did a wedding at TC Steel where we had to set up a mock kitchen with the bare
- necessities, bus tubs for water and a grill, and that was basically it. And we did 150 person wedding,
- so you're ready already. Now you're a sous chef is someone who's worked for you here for not
- by the name of Anthony Gabriel. What do you see bring to this team? He is amazing. He's very talented.
- He's got an eye for detail and he's inspired. Definitely now I know feast is known for their fabulous
- tamales. Is there another dish or something else here at the restaurant that you've become known for?
- It's definitely how we're known. People will stop me at Target and say there's the tamale lady. I mean,
- but we definitely are more than tamales, so I think the cafe has given us another outlet to show what
- else we can do.
- Well, that was a conversation with Erica Yocum, the chef and owner at Feast Bakery Cafe. Erica, good
- luck to you. Thank you. In Kitchen Stadium. Thank you. All right, let's give her Erica Yocum. Ah, this
- is going to be great. Not yet. I just want to smell and see what's coming up. By the way, just very quickly,
- I did send out a Facebook invite for this event. And 55 people said they were attending. So if you're
- here, please raise your hand. Elizabeth Hernandez? Jared Thompson? Dana Thompson? Lisa Peterson? We'll
- get through the rest of them later. But if you did say you were attending or not, you owe us $25. Someone
- we owe is those restaurants.
- who donated appetizers tonight. Who had those amazing appetizers when they came in? Here's who we need
- to thank. We need to thank Farm Bloomington for the hummus, which was absolutely delicious. We need
- to thank Darn Good Soup for the spicy chicken. Chapman's for the filo pesto tart. Yeah. One World Catering
- for the beaten feta puffs. Yeah.
- Seth Elgar from Upland Brewery for the corn salad. From Eagle Point, we had the pico de gallo and chips,
- very, very nice. And for the Owlry, we had the veggie BLT. So I guess that was beets, lettuce and tomato.
- It was a B, if it was veggie. This poor woman is looking at me like, I got it, go on. We're good.
- Dave, can you tell us what's going on in there so far? Well, I see a ton of seasonal produce over here,
- which is pretty exciting. We got tons of zucchini and yellow squash. We've got mushrooms. We got creminis
- and button mushrooms. I see a cantaloupe over here. We've got green olives, which actually is not a
- seasonal local thing. But we've got lots of basil. We've got, as far as the squash goes, we've got Erica
- peeling right now.
- some butternut squash, which is something that's gonna take a while to cook, so she's gotta get that
- going right away, not to put any pressure on her. We've got peppers, we've got pineapples, we've got
- white wine, we've got a beer over here, but I think this might be something that the sous chef might
- be drinking. We've got, which is fine, we've got olive oil, I mean, we've got an amazing amount of local
- produce, and it looks like we got some, is that trout over there?
- Yes, we've got some trout. And so that's our protein over here. So we've got a plethora of local seasonal
- ingredients plus green olives and trout. Well, you don't know that those green olives may have been
- local. They could have snuck into someone's pantry late at night, stole them. That's local, right? Like
- maybe 300 or 400 years ago when we were all Pangea. We might have been able to grow olives here. You're
- probably right, Brad.
- You lost me, Dave, but I'm going to nod and pretend like I'm as smart as you. You know what? I'm guessing
- you were actually probably around when Pangea. Oh! What was the Rhinos Pangea? It was like for Neanderthal
- children. Yeah, back in Rhinos, back in caveman days, we used to have a bunch of sticks and stones that
- they would hit together. And it doesn't sound a whole lot different from what's going on at Rhinos now.
- I think that was a joke I just made, but thanks for stepping on it. That was awesome. We do have a few
- minutes. It's all right. Sorry. You're fine. We have fun here. We have fun. That's what we do, is fun,
- and we have it. Ladies and gentlemen, our next contestant, won't you please welcome, all the way from
- the Uptown Cafe, Lake Hubbard.
- Lake has been sequestered underground in our bunkers. So there he is, Lake Hubbard. And Lake, who's
- your sous chef there? Craig. Craig Kirby. Craig Kirby is the sous chef. All right.
- So, Lake came all the way down from the Uptown, another fine Kirkwood Avenue restaurant, and he's the
- son of Michael Cassie, as many of you know, is the chef and owner of the Uptown Cafe. He's out here
- in attendance. He started making food really cool in Bloomington years ago, so it's nice to have you,
- Michael. Lake has spent most of his life in the kitchen, as you can tell. His hope is to wow the judges
- with his creativity. He's been busy creating menu plans for any possible secret ingredient.
- And Hubbard described his style in the restaurant, challenging himself daily to create new and successful
- dishes. He explained that every day is a competition, and he lives for this sort of event. He's a veteran
- of many kitchens, obviously. Craig Kirby also works at the Sous Chef at the Upland. Pardon me?
- Just a cook. What's just a cook, people? Come on now. No one there knows that. Say yes.
- And Lake wants to be known that he is a sous chef at the Uptown since his father is the chef and remains
- that way. Craig is from Newcastle, Indiana, so he's a semi-local product also. And they just want to
- come out here and have fun in this competition. So you guys give him a big round of applause.
- Great, great thing, Lake may not remember this because he may not have even been born, but if Michael's
- here, he'll know that the very first car accident that I got into in the city of Bloomington, Indiana
- was with Michael Cassidy. It was a very snowy, icy morning. I was driving literally a 74 Chrysler New
- Yorker, which was this huge boat of a car. Hang on, I've got a story to tell.
- And I just scraped just enough of the ice off the window so I could see. And I was coming down. And
- all of a sudden, bam, someone hit me from the side. Obviously, not my fault, except for the fact that
- I ran the stop sign. And it was my fault, because I couldn't see. And it was Michael Cassidy. And Michael,
- being the remarkable gentleman that he is, got out of his car, approached me. And if it were me, I would
- be screaming and yelling. I would be ready for it. He's like, wow, Brad, funny us getting into an accident, huh? 10.
- That was nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, begin. Got some cooking to do. I did
- have a punch line for that, but we'll just move right along. So Dave, can you tell me what's going on
- over there right now?
- So over here on Lake and his sous chef Craig's station we've got, already we've got out, is that curry
- powder? We've got a little bit of natural sugar. We've got some salt. We've got sugar. We've got an
- enormous amount of local seasonal zucchini. We've got tons of butternut squash. We've got red peppers.
- We also have a bunch of hand operated equipment right here. We've got like a really old fashioned food mill.
- And we have a mandolin right here, which reminds me that none of the chefs in this competition can use
- electric, you know, food processors, blenders. It'll also be hand-operated, which, you know, makes for
- an extra added amount of difficulty. And right now, the sous chef is just chopping up a large amount
- of onions, which I'm assuming are also from a local farmer. And as far as proteins go, it looks like we've got
- Um, some ribs of pork that have been already... Sorry, you know, you rarely see French pork ribs, so
- that's actually really nice. All right, we got another video to show you. This time, that features Lake.
- I'm here with Lake Hubbard in front of the Uptown Cafe, where he is the head in the kitchen, right?
- The executive chef. Yes.
- You grew up basically in this restaurant, and now you're competing in the Chef's Challenge. What brought
- you this great leap to this point in your career? Well, I think I've been fortunate enough to be born
- into a business like this. And, you know, it's been a long road, you know, growing up here, you know,
- from washing dishes to becoming the sous chef, you know. It's been a good process, and I've learned
- a lot along the way. And, you know, I'm ready to kind of take it to the next level.
- So I understand that the choice of your sous chef is a little bit different than what we've seen here
- before at the Chef's Challenge. He actually cooks in a different kitchen. Why don't you tell me about
- that? Well, Craig, actually, he worked with us for a while last year. And me and him just kind of got
- along real well. And I really like his outlooks on food. We have a lot of similar tastes and stuff like
- that. So have you been doing any secret ingredient planning or scheming to get yourselves prepared for
- what we might throw at you?
- We've been trying to lay out different scenarios. But at the same time, try to keep an open mind. If
- I knew that question, what it was, then I would probably be doing better. So just mainly just keeping
- an open mind and kind of taking it as it comes. Now, I've been eating at the Uptown Cafe since it was
- on North Walnut and have great memories of it back in the 70s. You've been around forever. I know what
- I need to eat. But what about those alumni that come back? What do they have to have on their weekend
- in Bloomington?
- Well, I'd say we're really well known for our brunch and breakfasts and our eggs benedict and things
- like that we put a lot of pride into. But we do breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which not a lot of restaurants
- do. So we're known for a lot of different things. Mostly our Cajun American fare. We're not pretentious.
- We like to serve good food. It's simple and at a competitive price. And you know you're going to get
- something good here. Well, thanks for joining us, Lake.
- I wish you the best of luck here at our kitchen stadium at the Busker Chumlee Theater. Have a great
- event. Thank you. All right. We have a quiz for a person to raise their hand. You're going to win a
- prize. And for those of you watching at home, this was taped earlier. You're welcome to answer, but
- there's no prize for you. I'm sorry. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, your question and the winner of
- this question is going to get a beautiful
- Uptown Cafe t-shirt. It is a size L for luxurious. I'm gonna go right through that. Okay, here is your
- question. No, can't do that question. All right. Where was the original
- 30 seat location of the Uptown Cafe located. This lady right here, first hand I saw. North Walnut, that's
- a pretty large street. I'm gonna give her the opportunity to narrow that down a little bit. Really?
- You said North Walnut and you really had no idea where it was?
- Yeah, no, you're disqualified. Please remove her. This young lady right here in the first row. Waving
- your hand right there. Look at you going way back in the way back machine. That is exactly correct.
- Right where Johnny Rockets is looking right now. So come, Cathy, come. I knew who Cathy Aiken was. She
- can come in.
- All right. That was exciting, wasn't it? Yeah. Okay, so we're still looking for Valerie Houghton. Valerie's
- made it, okay. Alexandra Jean Assury. She owes us 25 bucks, okay. Vicki Pierce. We owe her 25 bucks.
- We'll keep going through this list. Lynn Schwartzberg is here, correct? Tom Atkinson, you here? That
- was Tom's girlfriend. Didn't know what that meant. All right. Let's do something fun. Let's do another
- one, shall we? All right, let's find a good prize. Since we're still talking uptown, let's do a $25
- uptown gift certificate.
- The person can tell me what MC of the fifth annual Bloomington Chef's Challenge had his first serious
- girlfriend was a waitress at the Uptown Cafe. Right here. What's my name? Sorry you lose. Right here.
- This guy in the world is not me. You're a liar. Sit down. Right back here. There you go, young lady.
- You just won this. All right.
- And just a note, for the final contestant coming out here in just a second, you can prep that pantry
- before your cooking time starts. We probably should have said that before the other two, but we'll just
- go from that. All right, ladies and gentlemen, let's now bring out Damian Esposito.
- Can you tell me a little bit about Damian? Sure. Damian Esposito is from the Indiana Memorial Union
- and a great guy. He's from Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and has been at the union for three years, during
- which time the menus have been updated and expanded. He's treating the chef challenge like a job interview,
- and that's his strategy. He recalled a job interview where questions, or after questions and answers,
- he was presented with a surprise basket of ingredients, and he was asked to cook from. It's a fantastic idea.
- It's kind of stodging almost, so to speak. His secret ingredient, or his idea of secret ingredient,
- is to plan to evaluate the pantry with a sous chef, which is Michael Craig, and create a plan. Got you.
- 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and begin. Rog, you can go ahead and finish that. All right.
- Michael, Craig the Sous Chef is also from Bloomington. They worked together in the Union as a pastry
- chef. The Union, as you know, has a very, very expansive kitchen. They do a lot of different events
- throughout the course of the year, and they also cater. Very challenging job, and he feels up to the
- competition. Also, I consider him a friend of mine and a very great chef. Go for it, Damian. That's it.
- Also like to know the secret, and I don't even know if they're still there, but in the sugar and spice,
- is sugar and spice still at the Union? Yeah. They had those like special K clusters. I don't know what
- was in those. I was assuming it was healthy. Apparently it wasn't. But I had a lot of them when I was
- in college. All right. We do have a video that is going to explain more about Damien and the IMU.
- We're here with Damian Especito, executive chef at the Indiana Memorial Union. Damian, you ready for
- Sunday? We are. You are. Now what are you bringing to the table? What kind of experience do you think
- you're going to have to tap into to deliver on this challenge? We're bringing 16 years of experience
- in myself, as well as my pastry chef, Michael Craig. He's kind of our secret weapon.
- If we've never had a pastry chef participating in that role at this event, what do you think he's going
- to be able to bring that we haven't seen before? We are looking forward to creating some sort of pastry
- dessert with whatever the secret ingredient is, as well as a couple of other courses. So any hopes,
- wishes, concerns about what the secret ingredient might be and how you're going to approach it? We noticed
- peaches weren't on the pantry list.
- So we are ending the local peach season. We're thinking maybe it might be peaches. We're hoping it is
- not something savory like a squash. Michael would be a little befuddled on that for a minute. But we've
- got some tricks up our sleeve. We're pretty excited. So you're going to be working in a very low tech
- kitchen. How do you think you're going to approach cooking without all of your special tools that you
- have here? I imagine it would be a lot like cooking at home.
- I don't have a lot of the high-tech equipment that I have in an industrial kitchen, but I do like cooking
- a lot at home with fresh ingredients and, you know, entertaining friends. So I imagine it would be a
- lot like that, you know, using whatever we have and, you know, preparing it as quickly as possible and
- making it look as nice and taste as wonderful as we possibly can.
- It was great to talk to you. It looks like you are ready to approach this competition with your full
- armament, with Michael here next to you. And I'm interested to see what you guys come up with. Me, too.
- Well, good luck to you. Thank you. All right, Davey and Esther, as you know. And once again, I thought
- they really made a mistake with the sous chef, because I always knew the sous chef as slurpy.
- Of the four or five people who knew Slurpee back from his Rhino's days when he was a scoffiend, we know
- that he was in there now, so it's Slurpee. Here, it's a sous chef. I think he's working and we should
- just not bother him, even though that's what I've done. Dave, can you tell us what's going on now with
- our chefs? Well, right now, your former Rhino student, Michael Craig, is peeling and dicing some butternut squash.
- going to maybe seed these bottom house, or maybe he's just going to use the top part. The top part is
- actually more fibrous, but it has so much more bulk, and it's just a lot easier to use. They've also
- got some coconut milk out on their station. They've got some heavy cream and some milk. And they also
- have some of the same seasonal vegetables. They've got some zucchinis. They've got some peppers and
- tomatoes. And Demian Esposito over here is breaking. He has already broken down a whole chicken over here.
- He is obviously going to do something with this chicken. Hopefully something savory. I hope so. Yeah,
- yeah, something, you know. It would be a shame for the poor chicken. Well, you know, you don't want
- it to, you know, see it end its life for something unsavory. And over here on Erica's station, we've
- got some green olives being sliced in half. And earlier, before that, there were some cherry tomatoes
- also being sliced in half. And we've got
- The pineapple has already been diced, and we've got some butternut squash that has already been diced
- as well. So nothing I can tell right now as far as what's going on. Over here on Lake Station, we've
- got a curry zucchini soup that is working right here on this burner right here. We've got sauteed onions.
- We've got, obviously, zucchini, some curry powder. Not sure how the squash is going to work its way
- into that, but zucchini is the kind of squash, so never mind. And then over here, Lake is seeding some
- more butternut squash. So everybody's in a frenzy. Can you guys smell that, by the way, by this point?
- Yeah. If you're up on the balcony, can you smell that up there?
- If you're watching at home, can you smell that? If you can, stop doing whatever you've been doing. It's
- time to put it down now. But these lucky folks who are sitting right down front here, they're going
- to get to taste all of this fantastic food that's coming up, because they bought bistro seats. And those
- bistro seats cost $5,000 each. No?
- Your date told me to tell you that it cost $5,000. I'm not sure. No, it was only $100 a piece. And some
- people through the auction spent a little more than that. Next year, you too could sit right down here
- in the bistro seats and get to taste this amazing food. But tonight, you're going to have an option
- to do so as well. We're going to have a live auction for one more seat down here coming up in a little
- bit. But before we get to that, we've got one more quiz for right now that we want to get to.
- This is a $20 Nick's gift certificate. A $20 Nick's gift certificate. If you can tell me, what country
- did Nick of Nick's English Hut hail from? Right here. What? Greece? I can't hear you over the obvious
- cooking that's going on next to me, but the answer is Greece. You are correct.
- Enjoy that. All right, we got something a little fun for you here. We have a video that describes all
- the amazing attributes of our secret ingredient, squash. Our secret ingredient is squash. From the little
- tiny patty pan to the larger butternut, we've got acorns, giant zucchinis,
- We have crook neck, we've got squash. Squash was thought to have been cultivated about eight to 10,000
- years ago. And it's one of the three sisters of the Native American garden with beans and corn being
- the other two. Now corn grew on tall stalks and it created a stand for the beans to grow up. And it
- also created a beautiful shade for the squash to grow. And that's the beauty of the three sisters. One
- of the interesting things about squash is that every part of the plant can be eaten.
- From the blossoms before the fruit even develops, the seeds, the stems, the little leafy tendrils, the
- entire plant can be eaten, and that's one of the wonderful things about squash. The seeds can also be
- eaten plain, they can be dried, they can be ground into flowers, and they can also be made into seed
- butters, or what we would typically call a nut butter. So we're looking for exciting uses for the squash
- today, our secret ingredient.
- All right, folks, we're now going to have, we're going to explain these silent auctions, but they're
- not silent again tonight. We're going to have live auctions. This worked so well last year. We're going
- to do it again this year. Hang on one second. This carrot is now up for auction. Last year we got $30
- for a peach. So we're going to try to see if we can get $35 for this carrot. Do I hear $35?
- $35 right there. Do I hear $40 for this carrot? All money goes to the community kitchen. $40 for this
- carrot. Did someone just say $0.50? Do you not understand how an auction works? I already have $35.
- $35 going once. Oh, $35.50.
- Do I hear 70, 70? All right, 35.50 for the carrot, 35.50. Do I hear 40? 40, right down front, the woman
- in the awesome dress, $40. Do I hear $40.50, $40.50? $40, going once, going twice. Ma'am, you just bought
- a carrot for $40.
- I'll save that right there, and you can come up and collect that right there. All right, we have a grape,
- a grape. Let's go to, first of all, the judges' seat. As you see, there's one more chair. Rags, can
- you point at that chair right there? There's one more chair right there. Oh, chair. Right there. You
- have the opportunity to come and sit right there with those judges. You can eat what they eat.
- You can listen to how they judge, but you cannot judge, because we learned that lesson a couple years
- ago. But we're going to auction off that seat right now. Right now, you have the opportunity to eat
- this food, sit with the judges, listen to what they say, and have a chance to impact what goes on here.
- So can I hear $100 for a table to sit at the judges table? $100. Right back there, $100. So I hear $110.
- Right there, $110. Thank you, Sir. 125. Do I see a hand over to the left to your right? 125 remember
- all this money goes right to the community kitchen. I may touch it first, but it's going to go to the
- commission. The kitchen right after that. How about 130? 130 right there. 135.
- 135 135 135 in the back 135 in the back 140 140 140 140 right there 145 145 Goosebumps I got the goosebumps
- there's a guy in front of the audio board who wants to make a bid a guy really 150 who is that?
- Right there, 150, I see it. 175, 175. 160. We got 160, 160 right up there in the balcony. I literally
- cannot see the balcony, so if you can help me if we see this, we got 165, right? $400, $400.
- 170, 170. No one for the balcony has ever won before, 170. 165 going once. In the back to your right,
- in the back to your right. 170 right there. 170, 175. 175. Balcony. 175. 180.
- 180. And the right to the back. 180. I have no idea why they're asking me to do this. I cannot see beyond
- this table right here. 185. There we go, 185, 190. 190. 190 right there. I'm gonna lose my voice.
- 195. 195. All eyes are on you, dude. There you go. $200. $200. You get the set right next to David Talent.
- $200. That's worth $200 no matter what. $200. Right there, $200. 210. 210? 210.
- 220. 220. Is that 220 right there, all right? 230. What? I'm an old man who's been listening to rock
- and roll for 40 years. I cannot hear anything you're saying.
- chair $500 to add a chair $500 tell you what we have two bistro seats available for the next auction
- so if you want two seats you may want to hang on to that bid where were we at we were at 220 over here
- 220 right here for one at the judges table 220 going once he did he say 230 up there for the one seat
- Gotcha. 230, one seat. 240. In this economy, you can't not afford to do this. $240. $240, exactly.
- And so, sir, to you, I say $250.
- $250. What is the highest you're going to go, ma'am? Let's just cut to the chase. You got $400 in your
- pocket right now? Is that what you got? I was kidding about $400 before, but let's do this. No,
- you're done? You're done? $250. There's your winner.
- And Tim Clower will shake you down for that money as soon as he can get to you. Wow, that was exciting.
- All right, grape. We have a grape. I'm kidding. You know, that is the first winner from the balcony
- ever. Ever. And I mean, in the history of the Busker-Chelmey Theater, a lot of people have set up there.
- Not one person has ever won anything. This is the first time.
- that anyone has done that, so that is great. What's your name, ma'am? That's the last name I'm missing.
- Host. Welcome. Congratulations. Brandy Host is her name. $250 to sit next to David Taylor.
- But you didn't spend enough to talk to the other two. Don't know. No. I'm kidding. She spent plenty.
- All right. Now we have two more bistro seats. We're just sitting right down here. Two seats to get plated
- to eat all the food. Right now we're going to start the bidding at $200. Two seats. They spent $100
- each to start this. So it's only fair that we start the bidding for two seats at $200. Do I hear $200
- for two seats?
- Right back there, $200 for two seats right there. Do I hear $225? Over here, $225. $250. $250,
- right there, $250. $275. $275. Over here, $275. $300. $300. Right there, $300. $325. $325.
- 350. I haven't forgotten you people way up there in the balcony. 350, how about up there? 350,
- right there. 375. 375. 400. 400. 425. 425. 450.
- Two seats. Really going to impress that lady with you, sir. I mean, I can't see you, but I'm thinking
- that's got to help. There we go. All right. Oh, yeah, that guy's going to need some help. 450 there.
- All right. 475. 475. $500. That's just $50 more than you said before. Come on.
- That's not even a tank of gas. $50. $50. $500. $525. Let's milk this guy for all he's got. $525.
- What you got? No? Yes? $525? $525. Right there. All right. $525.
- He's got a date with him, too. He's looking pretty cool right now. I don't know what you're thinking,
- but $5.50 might seal the deal. $5.50? $5.50? $5.50? $5.50? $5.50? What are you thinking? $5.50? Look,
- she's put her purse in. She's going to leave if you don't go to $5.50. It's over. $5.50? No?
- All right. 525 to the young man right here. Come on down. Don't come in. What's your name, sir? Patrick?
- Holly McCullough and Patrick Jesse, ladies and gentlemen.
- Welcome them. You know, I think that $525 deserves a lot more of applause than that, actually. Pretty
- impressive. And to my buddy up there who milked these guys for all they're worth, good job. Good job,
- my friend. You know what? Rags, what you doing over there? You want to let us know what's going on with
- our judges right now?
- We're having a little discussion up here between the judges. Lynn, you want to do a quick observation?
- So far, what you see? Just a quickie. Well, it looks like Lake is making a soup, or at least that's
- what it looks like from here. I saw Damien bone an entire chicken, which was really the first time I
- think we've seen that here at the Chef's Challenge. It was great. Good night's work. Yeah. And Erica has been
- Caramelizing some pineapple. She's got fish. I have no idea what they're gonna do with the fish yet
- and She made a gorgeous reduction for that looks like for a pineapple something sweet. Yeah, so they're
- all going in different directions Yeah, a lot of stuff going on there Charlotte Just a quick observation
- for your play-by-play here. See what do you think so far? I'm waiting for the cooking to start I see
- coconut milk
- in two different places. All right, that's good. Chef Talent, quick observation. It's far more relaxing
- to be up here watching than it is to be on the floor. Yeah, so much going on. Yeah, I'm nervous for
- them. Thank you. Thanks, Dave.
- All right, that's a quick observation from our panelists up here. All right, now I'm sure you guys can
- smell that now, right? Yeah. I'm sure you guys can smell that now, right? It's pretty amazing. We're
- going to get to another quiz question right now and get you guys some more money here. But before we
- do that, as some of you may know, I do every once in a while
- do comedy at the Comedy Attic, which it's a great local business to go to support live comedy. But I
- have been asked this year to tone down my IU football jokes. And maybe not to do any IU football jokes.
- And I was like, of course I won't. It's already been told for me. So. Hey, I didn't do a Notre Dame
- joke, okay?
- Really? You care that much about college football in Bloomington, Indiana? Really? All right. Let's
- go ahead and let's do a $20 gift certificate to Feast. Okay, this is a tough one. What is the name of
- the corn dough found in tamales?
- This woman's going to have a stroke if I don't call on her, like right in the middle, right there.
- No masa. I know. Come on down. It's Spanish for dough. And what is the Spanish word for water?
- course it is. There's no gift for that. You should know that by now. All right. Dave, can you tell us
- what's going on over here? Yeah. Over here on Lake and Craig station, they've got this curry zucchini
- soup going. Over here we've got some diced butternut squash boiling. We've got some pork loin steaks
- here that have been coated with the curry powder. Over here in the middle and Erica and
- In Erica and Anthony's station, we've got a little salad here that has olives, green olives, peppers,
- tomatoes, and basil. Erica made a caramel a few moments ago. We've got some mushrooms sauteing. We've
- got some julienne, zucchini, and we also have some trout that has been filleted and set out here.
- These mushrooms over here are being cooked with some white wine. Hey. And over here on Damien's station,
- we also have some julienne squash. We have an interesting preparation that I'm not sure about here.
- We've got some finely minced butternut squash that has been set in the cheesecloth and is boiling over
- here. We've also got some basmati rice. We've got me in the way. We've got some minced peppers. We've
- got some minced tomatoes.
- We've got something on this flat top here that it looks like a julienne squash patty. On Erica's station,
- pineapple has been caramelized with sugar and one of those torches. So she has used some plenty of open
- flame over here, which, you know, a lot of people like. 30 minutes. Dave Coons, man on the scene, everybody.
- Here we go. 10 minutes. 20 minutes. All right.
- Most of you who live here in town probably know this, but the Taste of Bloomington, which happens every
- June, a fantastic local event with bands and food from all over our community, it's a wonderful thing,
- but what they also do from that great event is they donate money back to the Community Kitchen for what's
- convenient. This year, the Taste of Bloomington raised over $9,000. From 2010, for the Community Kitchen.
- that is a remarkable thing to do to have fun too. Let's do one more quick quiz. This is a $25
- gift certificate from Goods, place for cooks, Goods. What popular kitchen implement shares its name
- with an instrument Miami Steve Van Zandt plays
- often in the East Street band. I'm afraid you're gonna hurt me if I don't let you answer, sir,
- so go ahead. Let me check that. That is correct, here you go. I don't know if you've seen what's in
- front of me here, but there's some items that have been donated for another auction
- We've always done the silent auction thing, but you can see them right here in front of us. Two of these
- items are donated from Goods for Cooks. The first one is a 16 by 13 stainless steel roaster pan with
- aluminum core. That should make you go, ah. Yeah, with the aluminum core.
- This item was donated by Goods for Cookies. It's also a set of... No, no, no. It comes with steel rack
- inserts, perfect for roasting turkeys, baking lots of lasagna. It's very cute. They spelled lots of
- L-O-T-S-A. That's adorable. This item was donated by Goods, and it's got a $100 value, this roasting
- pan. Can I hear $100 for this roasting pan?
- Right there. All right. That's $100. $125. Remember, all this money goes to the community kitchen. $125.
- $100 going once. Yep. Going once. $110. All right. $110. There you go. Same woman who bid $100. Awesome.
- All right. $110. Can I hear $120? $120.
- $500. 125. 125. Roasting pan. Aluminum core. 125. 120. Going once. Going twice. You just want a roasting
- pan for $120.
- Now here's the other thing I got it confused with. This also donated to us from Goods for $180 value.
- It is a six and a half quart electric slow cooker, fully programmable, ceramic insert. This, it would
- be a crock to compare this to any other, any kind of pot that you would cook in. That would just be a crock.
- Slow cooker. The sous chefs are booing me now. Chef Erica has five minutes. Chef Lake. 15 minutes. Chef
- Damien 25. Alright, so this amazing all clad slow cooker. This is this is as good as you're going to
- get. $180 value. Let's start the bidding at $180 right here. $180. $200.
- Right back here, $200. 210. 210. Are you just waving over there? No, she's not even paying attention.
- 210. 225. 225, there you go. All I had to do was add 15 to it, 225. 235. 235.
- All right, 220, what was it? You had Sarah, now I've already forgotten. 225, that's what I thought too.
- But it never hurts to see if I can get $5 more out of him. Going once. Oh, 230, 230. What? It does come
- with instructions. And sir, if they're not in there, I'll direct you to a website that you can look
- them up. There you go.
- $235, right here, $235. Do I hear $240? $240. Do I hear $250? All proceeds go to the Community Kitchen,
- $250. So $240, going once. $240 going once. Going twice. $240, you just won yourself one heck of a cooker.
- Come on down and pick it up. So Tim and folks in the kitchen, I hope you're seeing who these people
- are that have got these items so you can get that back from them. Three minutes for Chef Erica.
- Thank you, man. 13 minutes for Chef Lake. 23 minutes for Chef Damien. All right, that's a lot of fun,
- wasn't it?
- of fun, wasn't it? All right, we got that two-minute warning coming up here. One quick round of rags.
- Up there, what do the judges think now is what's happening? Up here at Chef Central, it's very intense.
- We've had a lot of discussion going on between our judges here. And I know you guys have a lot of fun
- out there, and I hope when you watch this on TV. But these chefs down here are extremely intense, extremely
- intense. Lynn, what's your observation? Quickie here.
- Well, I'm starting to see some dishes come together. It's hard to tell what's happening until they start
- to formulate things. So I have some ideas of what's happening. Yeah. There you go, Charlotte. Two minutes
- for Chef Erica. Yeah. I think timing is tough. And we see a lot of activity. I think it's going to be
- nip and tuck over here. And there's a lot of, it's interesting to see how differently the chefs approach
- these things and how much some of them are getting done as compared to the others. Chef Talent, your
- observation? Things are starting to smell really good and I'm just looking forward to tasting the food.
- All right. So very quickly, if you're wondering to yourselves what these judges are going to be looking
- for, they're going to be looking for organization with 25 points for that, with sanitation.
- full utilization of ingredients, use of the assistant and use of the allotted time, cooking skills and
- culinary techniques, like methods, skills, creativity, craftsmanship, serving and portion size.
- And finally, taste, the big thing, 50 points for taste, flavor and texture, ingredient compatibility,
- nutritional balance, presentation, and the use of the secret ingredient. We're just seconds away from
- the voice of God giving us the countdown.
- Chef Erica has 30 seconds. 30 seconds. 20 seconds. 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three,
- Two, one. Chef Erica is now complete. Wow. There is. There are some serious estrogen in the house tonight.
- This is pretty serious. Now she does have some time here to plate.
- to get that to the judges and then down to the bistro tables. So if you're sitting down there in the
- bistro tables, it's coming. Don't worry. She's got that time because part of it's going to
- be that presentation too. So how about another round of applause for your first contestant, Erica? I
- think once again each year I stand up here and I
- I mentioned why we're doing this, and we're having a great time, and this is a remarkable undertaking.
- There are so many people who've been involved to put this under operation. We'll tell you about them
- in a little bit. But the reason we're here is the community kitchen. And every year I keep saying, I
- wish that we don't have to do this again next year, because there won't be a need to feed hungry people.
- But that's not the case. So some just quick statistics.
- About the community kitchen they served two hundred and eleven thousand three hundred and twenty two
- meals and healthy snacks to Monroe County residents in 2010 Sixty one percent sixty one percent of the
- kitchens patrons are children Fifteen percent of the kitchens patrons are seniors and
- The Community Kitchen provides two prepared meals weekly, two prepared meals every weekday delivered
- free of charge to HIV positive Monroe County residents. The Community Kitchen provides food assistance
- to children in the following youth programs. All three Boys and Girls Clubs, the main one, the Crestmont
- one, the one in Ellisville, Girls Inc., Rhinos Youth Center,
- The child care program at Middleway House. All those kids get healthy after school snacks from the Community
- Kitchen. And every once in a while the Rhino staff get some of those snacks too. I'm not sure. That
- was what I was saying. Let's see. That was the joke. The Community Kitchen provides backpacks of weekend
- food supplies to nearly 100 children at six local elementary schools.
- Arlington Summit, Clear Creek, Grandview, and Edgewood. The kitchen delivers over 13,000 breakfasts
- to children in low-income neighborhoods each summer. Community Kitchen moved into their new home at
- 1515 South Rogers in late July 2011. It's a fantastic space. If you haven't seen it, I suggest you go
- down and check it out.
- I suggest that because I haven't done it yet either, so I need to go do that. But you also need to know
- that the money that we're raising here this evening is for operational, day-to-day work to feed people.
- This is not for that building. This is not the capital campaign that went to put that place together.
- This is so the kitchen could open its doors every day and keep serving hungry people. That's what we're
- here for tonight.
- There's still another $275,000 needed to pay off the loan for those renovations. I know this community
- can do that. If you haven't already helped out with that program, please do so. Everyone in this room
- knows someone who can contribute something to help with that $275,000. And everyone watching this at
- home can donate something to help the community kitchen. So please do that. You can easily make a donation
- Why does anyone ever say WWW anymore? Just type this in. MonroeCommunityKitchen.com or mailing your
- donation to P.O. Box 3286, Bloomington, Indiana 47402-3286. Make sure to mark your gift for Build the
- Kitchen. But right now, we're here to raise money for operational funds for the Community Kitchen. And
- I would like, if you work for the Community Kitchen, if you're part of the board,
- Any part of this, please stand right now and be recognized for the work that you do for this community
- and why we're here. Chef Lake has five minutes remaining. All right, so where should we go now? Dave,
- can you tell us what's going on? Yeah, over here on Erica Yocum Station from Feast. She's got three dishes.
- which is pretty impressive. Over here, she's got a little appetizer. She's got a little sauteed julienne
- squash mushroom with a little crostini, just some grilled bread. Over here, she's got some grilled trout
- with kind of a ragu of olives, peppers, tomatoes, and basil with a little bit of goat cheese. And then
- for her little dessert course, she's got some whipped cream with some caramelized pineapple,
- and some caramel, so she has really not, I'm sorry. And she's got some kind of cocktail. Which apparently
- I do, I do not need to describe any more than that, but yeah, so she's really taking it to, in her first
- bout here at the Chef's Challenge Kitchen to the next level, so.
- to get those dishes up in front of the judges right now. Rags is going to help them do that. Those bistro
- seats are looking pretty sweet now, aren't they? Oh, you guys sit on screen. Look at our great camera
- work there, huh? Let's hear it for the cameraman from BCAT. Anyway, we're getting ready for service
- here from Cats. I'm sorry, from Cats. All right. There you go, Erica.
- Just go ahead and describe the chefs what we have here. Okay, so we're starting with an ambrosia, melon,
- peach, basil sangria. Ooh. Okay. Okay, and then with the toasted baguette, we have yellow and zucchini
- squash, fresh tarragon, mushrooms, and a cream sauce. Wonderful.
- And then our trout, it was grilled and the sauce is heirloom tomatoes, goat cheese, olives, garlic.
- That's amazing. That's amazing. And the squash. And then the dessert is brulee pineapple, caramel and
- whipped cream. Awesome. Thanks, Erica. Dave, could you even contain your excitement over there? Ten,
- nine, eight, seven, six,
- Five, four, three, two, one. Chef Lake's time is complete. Now, remember, Chef Lake has five minutes,
- five minutes to plate. So he's going to have that five minutes to get that out there and get it.
- But Rags, what have we got up on the judges table?
- They're discussing things right now. The amazing flavors and textures kind of may be lost for words,
- but I don't think Charlotte's ready to say something here. Charlotte. I will say we were watching and
- didn't realize as much was going on as has gone on, and this is quite a remarkable presentation. Okay,
- Lynn. I have to say not only is the presentation remarkable, I've only tasted two of the dishes so far,
- and they are just
- bursting with flavor. I taste zucchini and yellow squash. Chef, a quick comment. What do you think about
- Erica's food here? Looks beautiful. Tastes amazing. Enough said, my man. Enough said. There you go.
- Enjoy. Dave, what is Lake Dunn over there?
- Well, it looks like Lake has a couple of dishes here. He's got a curry zucchini soup with a little crostini.
- The garnish on that is it looks like a little bit of fresh parsley and a little bit of fresh basil.
- He ran that zucchini through, some of it through this giant hand turned food mill, which is pretty impressive
- because, you know, can't use any electric devices over here. And then his other dish over here, he's
- got a grilled pork loin over some hash.
- which is made out of butternut squash, onions. He's got a little bit of carrots in there. He's got some
- peppers. Looks like he's got some onions. And what's the salt on the side? It's just a little chili
- powder and honey. Just a chili powder. And then he finished it with a little bit of honey. So that looks
- absolutely outstanding. And he finished the hash with some honey, too. So he's tying those two things
- together as well.
- Every everybody so far has really been bringing their a game. And Lake is and his sous chef Craig are
- about to start bringing their dishes up to the judges. Dave, I don't know if you can see what I see
- over here, but I've been threatened with a flamethrower of some kind. It looks like they're crispy.
- Oh, look at this. Oh, oh.
- This looks delicious. I get some of this as well, but you know what? I feel a little guilty. I feel
- like some of you out there who didn't have the $100 to sit down front. Chef Damien has two minutes.
- Should deserve to eat some of this food too. So here's what I'm going to do. This amazing dish right
- here is going to go to the first person who will give us $25 for the Community Kitchen. OK, how about $40?
- 40? How about 50? 50? Anyone got more than 50? 50, 55? 60? $60. Delicious food. You're still $40. $60
- right back there. You're still saving $40 from sitting at these tables. 65? Do I hear 70? $70.
- One minute. $70 right back there. Do I hear $75? $75. $80. $80. $80. $85. $85. $90. $90. $90 going once.
- Going twice. $90. There we go. $95. $95.
- For a plate of food, this is certainly a first world problem we've got going on right here. $95. 95,
- 95, 100, $100, 105. 105, do I hear 110? 110 for this plate of food, $110. Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four,
- Three, two, one. Chef Damien's time is complete. Five minutes to plate now. Five minutes to plate. 105
- is what we got. 110, 110, 115, 115. Same lady. Let's go back with 115. 120. 120 for a rapidly congealing
- plate of food.
- 120 going once, going twice, 115. Going once, going twice, sold $115 right here. All right, Kathy. Kathy
- Crabtree. Rags, what's going on up there?
- Lake is describing the judges during that great auction period, so the judges know what they're eating.
- But if you want to tell the audience and the TV people what you got here for us. Yeah, so we made a
- curried zucchini soup with a little fresh herbs on top and a grilled baguette. And then for the entree,
- we made a butternut squash hash with a little fresh sage, bell peppers, onions. And then we had a kind
- of seared, curried
- pork loin on top, garnished with a little honey drizzle, some chili pepper, and lime zest. Wow. Great
- utilization. Thanks, Chef. You want to hang on a second? I have a question for you. They're going to
- be tasting right now. Go ahead. Yeah. Thanks. Just sit up there and hang. Then you can have a beer.
- Judge, is anybody ready to make a comment here? The soup is terrific. The soup is great. I have no mind.
- Try that one.
- The soup is wonderful. It's very, very spicy. A little back of the throat spice. I like that. And it
- has texture to it, which is really nice. It looked like as if it were going to be totally pureed, but
- it still has some texture, which I like. And the pork looks beautiful. We'll see. Chef? I appreciate
- the use of salt.
- kind of pushing it right up to the edge and bringing out the flavor of the squash with the salt, but
- not over-salting. Key point. Thanks, Chef. All right. Great job. Great job, Blake. Thank you. All right.
- Damien's getting ready to deliver his food up to the chefs right now. We do have a, you know, we did
- auction off a carrot.
- We just auctioned off a plate of food for $150. How is that? Is it amazing? Samantha, how's that pineapple
- piece up there? I know, it's a lot of fun. I'm glad that you weren't yelling at me during the comedy
- club because I could answer that a lot better than I can't hear in a public forum.
- Now, we also have the People's Choice Award. I don't know if you know about that. We've got 10 more
- minutes. You can vote for the People's Choice Award. Right up front, you've got a chance to vote for
- your favorite chef and or chefress. I think we should be gender neutral. I think we should all just
- be gender neutral when we come to this. How about chef? Thank you very much. You like that? So vote
- for your favorite chef.
- Did you like that? All right, hey. I just came up with that myself. I don't know if you saw me do that,
- but that's what I just did. You can vote for your favorite chef still right there in the lobby. There
- are jars. I think it's a dollar. Vote for your favorite chef. That's the People's Chef Award. The People's
- Choice Award. Now you've got me saying chef so much I can't say anything else. The People's Choice Award
- right out there. You still get an opportunity to make your voice who your favorite chef is. And we'll
- be able to award that here at the end of the evening. Rags?
- Can you tell me a little bit about the tradition, our culinary tradition here in the city of Bloomington
- and Monroe County? Well, per capita in the state of Indiana, Bloomington has the most restaurants and
- quality restaurants. We're very fortunate to have that here in Bloomington. We also have a lot of farmers
- around the area which supply us with all kinds of great organic and natural foods. Many of them are
- sitting out here in the audience with us. We have Ivy Tech, which has a great program for kids out there that are
- that want to get in this industry. It's a fantastic industry. If you have any talents whatsoever as
- far as food goes, you can go to the local restaurants and even get a job there. It's a great opportunity
- to meet people and go places. This is really important for the community of Bloomington because it's
- good for the future of Bloomington also. We have a lot of kids out there probably watching this and
- there's a lot of opportunities in this town to get
- very many different types of cuisine thrown at you and learned from people like David Talent or Jeff
- Finch or David Orr. And just we're very lucky to have a place like this. Just on Kirkwood alone, there's
- a handful of restaurants you know that are great quality. Anyway, I just want to thank everybody for
- coming tonight and enjoy the local cuisine and encourage people out there, the youngsters out there
- to get in this industry because it's a very noble profession. Thank you. Thank you, Rags.
- Just very quickly, everyone in this room knows this, for those of you watching at home, there's so many
- choices to go instead of a chain restaurant. Chain restaurants are fine and they provide income to the
- community and jobs for people, but there are just so many great local restaurants. There's seafood,
- there's Italian, there's Indian, there's French, there's taco trucks. Everything you want, we've got
- right here in Bloomington. So please take advantage of your local folks. All right, Dave, what's going on? Wow.
- I got to say, this is a beautiful plate. Over here, we've got from Chef Damien Esposito and his sous
- chef, Michael Craig, we've got like a little cucumber kind of salad that he made by slicing the cucumbers
- really thinly, putting them into some PVC piping and pulled them out. And then he's got like a fresh
- herb salad inside with a little bit of a vinaigrette. We've got a chicken roulade, which I have to admit,
- I didn't even see him make.
- He took that chicken that he deboned and cut down into a roulade with a little bit of zucchini tomato
- salsa on top. And that's going on top of that squash patty that he was making on the grill over there.
- And then right here we've got a rice pudding with a bruleed butternut squash chip. And so it's absolutely
- beautiful and uses the ingredient in every single aspect of it.
- I'm extraordinarily impressed tonight by all three of our chefs, or all six of our chefs. Let's give
- them all a big hand. For clearing the judges right now of what they had, we've got to get the next one
- up here. In the meantime, look at this. Oh, now this looks delicious. I don't think there's any way
- I can auction this off, because look how delicious.
- Unless someone would like to purchase this. Let's start the bidding on this at $50. That's a great question.
- I will get back to you with that answer. It is from Chef Lake. Exactly. Rags, which one is this?
- Where is Dave? Dave, we have a curried pork and a squash compote. Very nice. Curried pork and squash
- compote. Right here, curried pork. Here you go. Once again, let's start that bidding at $50. A fork
- will be extra. $50 over here. How about $55? $55. How about $65? $65. How about $75? $75. $65, going once.
- Going twice. Sixty-five right down here. No, that was seventy-five. What? It's seventy-five. Eighty-five.
- Eighty-five. Eighty-five dollars. One hundred dollars. Play for one hundred dollars. All proceeds go
- to the community kitchen. Eighty-five going once. Eighty-five going twice. Eighty-five dollars this
- plate of food.
- I was promised I'd get to eat some of this food. I don't know. Hey, let's get some more money out of
- your pockets here really quickly. We got one more auction item. This is a community kitchen grab bag.
- You've got the apron. You've got the towel. And you've got the community kitchen hoodie. It is a small.
- And I know that everyone in here could wear a small. I understand that.
- So, this prize package, we'll start this. Once again, all proceeds go into the community kitchen at
- $50. $50, apron, towel, sweatshirt, all for the community kitchen, $50. $50, how about $60? $60, how
- about $70? $70. $60 going once.
- Going twice. Sold. Community kids, your prize package. Yeah. All right. All right, while I take this
- over, Rags, I want you to let us know what's going on out there. Chef Damien is going to give us a quick
- description of what we have here. OK, so we have some bitter greens and a balsamic vinaigrette with
- a little bit of cucumber. And we have a chicken gallantine on top of a zucchini pancake with a zucchini
- and tomato salsa.
- and then a butternut squash rice pudding with relayed butternut squash. Wonderful. Beautiful. You might
- ask me a question or two once I get the taste. Thank you, Chef. It was great staying here for a second.
- Give them a second or two to taste. Absolutely amazing plate. Great job.
- And in a few minutes, we're going to have the announcement of the People's Choice Awards. So everybody
- stay tuned for that. Let the judges here have a taste of this. And then we'll get the big prize from
- the judges later. But this is the key part right here. Absolutely beautiful plating.
- So if you guys wanna make a quick comment, if you're ready. Jump right in on that. Judges come up. Okay?
- Okay. Sure. Well, this is a very, very creative use of zucchini. Zucchini pancakes were made in my home
- growing up quite a bit, so it's very nostalgic for me. I really like that as the bed for a very, very
- light chicken.
- And the fresh zucchini, this is the only use, I believe, of fresh zucchini the whole evening. So that's
- really fun. Great, great. Charlotte? OK, we'll just wait a second. Chef, are you ready? Again, a very
- creative use of the squash. Love the rice pudding. Salt is
- Salt is right, and it just tastes really good. Great. Thanks, Chef. Thanks, Charlotte. The rice pudding
- is extremely interesting and delicious. And the whole presentation is quite beautiful. Again, the use
- of the zucchini is sort of a double, a zucchini sandwich with a zucchini
- salsa sort of thing on top, and the zucchini pancake underneath the poached chicken, which is very nice.
- Thanks, Charlotte. Thank you, Chef. Great job. Thank you. Right on. Right on. Wonderful. Back to you,
- Brad. All right. Thank you, Rags. How are we doing down there in the bistro seats? Is it worth the money,
- you think? What's the money you saved?
- For those of you who have won all these auctions so far, everyone knows Tim Clower, right? Who was up
- here before with the secret ingredient? My thought, exactly. Please come up to Tim after the event and
- take care of what you owe. He's been taking meticulous account of how much you do owe. If you try to
- leave the building without paying, well, let's just say Tim is also a very big guy who's been working
- out. So let's just make sure that you do pay.
- paying one more time. At this point, it doesn't seem right for me to not option off this last amazing
- bit of food, which you just heard about from Chef Espinido. So we're going to start this bidding once
- again at $50. $50 right over here. $60. $60. $75. $75 right there. How about $100? $100 right there. $110.
- 100 going once, going twice. You just bought a plate of food for $100. Here you go. So folks,
- by my count, we've raised well over $1,000 just
- by small amounts of doing things here. So hats off to all of you. Including the lady with the carrot.
- Congratulations. She hasn't claimed her carrot yet, but I guess... It's still here. You haven't claimed
- your carrot. It's right here. I've got a fork for you, too, just in case. Oh. Yes?
- You're gonna, no, yeah, but, or toss it over there? We have insurance problems enough already.
- There's really, a carrot goes in someone's eye, you got a lawsuit, the next thing you know. Yay, lawsuits.
- This is an odd, I'm gonna tell ya, this is the fifth time we've done this. This could be the oddest
- bunch of folks we've ever had in one room for the challenge. And I like that. Give yourselves a round
- of applause for coming out to support this.
- Once again, we'd like to thank all of our sponsors who've helped make this possible very quickly. Like
- eartheats.org, the Herald Times online. And by the way, Lynn Schwartzberg and the Herald Times make
- this event. I mean, they run all the online voting and get this done. It's an amazing partnership. Relish,
- of course. Piazza Produce, Greene & Schultz.
- trial lawyers. Is that you from Green and Schulzer? Is that where you're so happy about the lawsuits? U.S.
- Food Service. Look at that. I'm not giving that up. That's for me. All right. Blue Ace Media, of course.
- Oliver Winery. Gouldian Sons. Blooming Foods. Cisco. And you see by the size of Cisco and Blooming Foods
- ads, who may have put in the most. Nix.
- all the local farmers, the Indiana Memorial Union, the City of Bloomington, the City of Bloomington
- Busker Chumlee Theater Grant Program, so we can have it in here, Gunthorpe Farms, Goods, Fine Print,
- and everybody else, including the United Way of Monroe County. Really quickly, we're getting ready to
- start the campaign, this year's campaign for the United Way.
- here in Monroe County. That's 26 different agencies, not just in the community kitchen. That's Stone
- Belt. That's Middle Way House. That's the Red Cross. That's Powell's. That's Rino's. That's Girls Inc.
- That's all these different agencies that serve our community. No one in this room is not touched by
- the United Way. So when that time comes, please give generously. We appreciate this. All right. And
- I'm not going to auction this food off. Dave and I are going to eat it.
- So Rags is going to go ahead and do a wrap-up up there. Yeah, right now the judges are scoring. It's
- a very difficult thing to do up here because the competition is really super, super intense. Lynn, do
- you want to make just a quick general thought about what's been happening up here? I think in the five
- years, this is so challenging. That's why it's a challenge. I agree. It was all completely amazing.
- So this is really hard. Yep. Charlotte?
- If you're ready. There's been such a gamut of food that we've seen here. It's amazing how the different
- approaches that the chefs have taken. And each one of them is quite delicious and beautiful. And now
- the problem is figuring out which is more. Great. Chef?
- been on that side I know how relieved you guys probably are right now for sure and but uh everything
- tasted everything tasted amazing you guys all got a lot done and you know I'm gonna reiterate what I
- said before is nice to be up here way more relaxing it's nice to be fed good food so
- Thank you, and nice work, everyone. Thank you, Chef. All right, yeah. Yep, they're tabulating right
- now, trying to figure out their scores here. So this is the, leave the judges alone. Let's go in here
- and see who the winner is. Leave the judges alone, stand back. Stand back. All right. All right,
- once again, the folks at the Community Kitchen do this work in this community
- No one involved in social service in this town is getting rich off of doing what they do. And I see
- Vicki Pierce who's sitting right in the front row and she's grading me on all I do and I'm gonna get
- a report back of whether I did good enough or not. But you need to know that Vicki and the staff at
- the community kitchen are consummate professionals who work very hard for people less fortunate in this
- community. And I would really appreciate if you give them another round of applause.
- And the man who puts this all together and works with all the volunteers is Tim Clower. And once again,
- those of you who have auctioned off stuff at the end of the evening, this is who you need to talk to
- to put your money in. This is Tim here. But Tim would like to just say a few quick words of thanks and
- recognition for how this was put on. Tim Clower.
- Thanks for making this and helping make this the biggest event ever our fifth annual so far from my
- calculations with sponsors and what everyone here has contributed from tickets to Auction items to the
- plates. We've raised over $21,000 I
- And speaking of records, there's a couple other milestones I wanted to relate to you, which you've heard
- about through the night, but they mean a lot to us. And one is that we're in a new building, which is
- very exciting. But sadly on the flip side is we also have served more meals than we ever have before,
- which is another record that's been set in 2010. So the building comes at the perfect time for us to
- have the space to expand and provide services that we do and to feed everyone that we can in the community.
- I'd like to thank a few people. First and foremost, the chefs for giving of their time on Labor Day weekend.
- All of the farmers and the local food businesses, Blooming Foods provided a lot of the food in the pantry
- as well as the bounty of produce that you see is from our own Bloomington Farmers Market. Some of those
- folks are here. I want to recognize them. Then, of course, our judges, the people that you see up there.
- Donating their time, the emcees, Rags and Dave and Brad. A person you don't see but you've heard his
- voice and that's Joe Throckmorton back in the room. TJ Deckard and then all friends of the Community
- Kitchen and friends of mine that have came and helped serve the food and volunteered throughout the
- event. I'd also like to thank Martin and the Cat's Crew
- for all their hard work tonight. The City of Bloomington Bede Theater Grant Program, which donated the
- theater space for us this evening, which just adds to the money we're able to make. And of course, you
- for coming out. So thanks for coming, and we'll have the announcements of the winners shortly.
- We're still tabulating. This is kind of an unprecedented long amount of time for me to get this done.
- So that means that this is really close. Down front, those of you who got a chance to eat from all three,
- does anyone have a pick of your own? The trout? The mushrooms. All right.
- Mushrooms and trout. I saw that band at the bishop before they were anything. They were great. Mushrooms
- and trout. They were really cool. Anybody else? I don't get to see these bistro folks down here. Over
- there to the stage left. Anybody got a favorite of anything you've had this evening? The pork loin.
- I just had some of that too. I was really
- And even though she didn't get a vote, but she did spend the money, so she at least talked to her a
- little bit. Brandi, what was your favorite this evening? It would be really hard to pick. I thought
- they were all really awesome. Big fans of both the Uptown and Feast. I eat there weekly. Damien is a
- professional friend of mine who caters a lot of my functions.
- If you had to wrestle away that rice pudding from me, I would have had a really hard time with that.
- But I have to say, the pork loin, the cocktail, I mean, I hope you start putting those at the restaurant
- because that was pretty damn awesome. But I honestly have to say all three restaurants did a phenomenal
- job. Thank you.
- Yeah, I got to taste all the food except for the cocktail. I think the cocktail is done. That's all
- right. Trust me, it's better. All right. You know, we're going to wait. We're still waiting. And we're
- waiting on the people's choice ballots to be finished too. So in the meantime, how about let's get an
- applause meter. Just who you think.
- Would be the best. How about first of all, for Chef Lake. And for Erica.
- For Damien. We actually have someone with a decibel meter on this in the back of the room. Blake got
- 91 decibels. Damien had 97 decibels.
- And Erica had 101 decibels. Which means absolutely nothing except that her, the people who love her
- are loudest, so. And they've also been the ones heckling me all night long, so we'll take that into
- her score as it comes in. Okay, we're just finishing the tabulations here right now.
- Hey, one more round of applause. These are volunteers who are working these tables right now. And the
- other thing is the appetizers, if you can remember that when you came in, sometimes those folks forget
- that these amazing local restaurants also donated food for this evening. They don't get all the press
- here. So one more time. Farm Bloomington, darn good soup.
- Chapman's, One World, Upland, Upland Blue Ring Company, Eagle Point, and the Owlery all get those remarkable.
- And because we're killing time, how about another round of applause just because we need to kill time.
- Round of applause for Killing Time.
- For all the good people working in social service agencies all across the country. The people who put
- out the phone book every year that's still useful to everyone. The internet, how about the internet?
- It's a good thing. One round of applause for my daughter Samantha, because if I don't, I'm gonna be
- in trouble.
- we're ready to make our announcements and so Tim Clower if you would like to go and announce the bistro
- seating from the votes of the bistro who got was their favorite and the People's Choice Award come right
- up. The bistro seating they picked Damian Esposito
- That was the bistro table's most popular chef this evening. And the People's Choice Award goes to Erica
- from F.E.A.C.E. All right. Congratulations, Erica. Wonderful job. Wonderful job. Means everybody loves
- you out there. All right. Thank you. And now.
- Are we going to have the judges make a quick comment with each chef? All right. All right. Are we ready?
- You roll it, baby. OK. Lake, your dishes were absolutely spot on. I tasted the hash by itself, and then
- I taste it together with the pork and the honey, and it was just right there. It was perfect. I really
- loved it. Close your mouth. Hold the mic closer. OK. There you go. And then go ahead.
- Oh, do you have anything to say? If you want to, you can. I appreciate your comments. Thank you. Sure.
- Erica, your dishes were just beautiful. They were just so lovely. And it was fun to have a little bonus
- cocktail and a dessert that didn't even speak to the secret ingredient. That was really fun. All right.
- Damien, the plate was just beautiful. And again, having a little palate cleanser after eating two meals
- was really nice.
- good break, and the dessert was a really wonderful treat. Thank you. All right. Charlotte. I think in
- my dreams I would have each of you all working together in a restaurant. And I would have Erica making
- that wonderful zucchini mushroom thing with the tarragon. And I would have Luke making that super
- That wonderful soup was particularly good. And I would have Damien making the dessert. Oh, wow.
- All right. Beautiful. On the other hand, everything was good. Everything was good. And it was this was
- the hardest thing we judged. Oh, yeah. The hardest. Yep. All right. Chef. I'm not going to speak to
- individuals, but to the to the collective. Nobody knows.
- how hard this is, except for you guys. And you all did it with class and grace. And you served us all
- really good meals, so thank you. All right, so we're gonna announce the winner. Thank you. All right,
- please one more round of applause for all three of your chefs and their sous chefs. Remarkable job.
- Don't forget if you if you bought something in auction tonight, please see Tim Clower afterward to make
- sure that's Tim with the golden spatula right now to make sure that you settle up with him. Tim has
- that golden spatula. He's going to walk to the stage and he is going to give the golden spatula award
- for the winner of the fifth annual Bloomington Chef's Challenge to Damian Esposito.
- Let's see if we can get a quick word with Damien and his sous chef. I know it's got to be a relief.
- The emotions probably just, it's hard to describe, but if you can put in the words with this, how this
- makes you feel, let us know. Well, I really owe this to this guy.
- This is my pastry chef. He will do some of the most incredible wedding cakes, pastries, plated desserts,
- pettifors, candies, cake on a stick. Everybody loves that. He's probably been one of my best hires that
- I've had in the last three years I've been here, and he's a joy to work with, and that rice pudding
- probably made the whole dish, so I really do owe it to him. It's awesome. All right, Seth, congratulations.
- More proof of how well Rhinos works in this community. Yeah. Thanks again to everybody involved. Thanks
- to you. And we'll see you again next year for the sixth annual. Good night, everyone.