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.