- silence your mobile electronic devices. Welcome to the stage, your emcee for this evening, Eric Coyne. And now, the Community Kitchen's Chef's Challenge.
- Chef's Challenge to support the community kitchen. Give yourselves all a round of applause for being here tonight. If you want to avoid the kiss camp tonight, just raise your hand. That's the best I got. That's the best I got. Hey, we are really thankful for everyone to be here today. And I want to start off by thanking our sponsors, because without them, none of this would be possible.
- So our Chef de Cuisine sponsor for tonight, Community Cars of Bloomington. Our sous chef sponsors, Lauren Wood Builders, Eagles Airy 1085, Boston Scientific Corporation, Nix English Hut, IU Credit Union, Spring Point Architects, Hoosier Hills Credit Union,
- And all of our other sponsors are listed in your program. So thank you very much, all of our sponsors. Now, real quick, here's how this is going to work. We've got 60 minutes for the chefs to cook. We're going to space them in 15-minute gaps. So we'll call the first chef out. He'll start cooking. 15 minutes later, there's next chef, so on.
- And then at the end of their 60 minutes, they have 10 minutes to plate their food for the judges. So in total, it's about 70 minutes per chef. So any questions, you can holler at me during the cooking and whatnot. There'll be plenty of time for that. At this time, I would like to introduce our judges, who will be overseeing what I expect to be a pretty fantastic evening from
- Our former One World GM, local foodie, who now writes for Blue Magazine, Lynn Schwartzman. Corbin Morwick, executive chef at One World and two-time Chef's Challenge winner.
- the Venerable Stacey Strand, our Program Chair in Hospitality and Culinary Programs at Ivy Tech. You know, if you work at Ivy Tech and you time it just right, you go down the halls around 3.45, 4 o'clock, there's always food to be sampled, and free parking. All right, at this time, I would like to introduce our celebrity chef,
- Greg Rags-Rago. Rags, come on out. Man who needs no introduction, VTown legend and chef. Excited to be working with him this evening, owner of NYX, and Osteria Rago. So this will be exciting. We'll have a lot going on tonight with Rags. And I will now kick it to Rags to introduce our chefs.
- It's my honor to introduce the chefs in today's competition for 2025 Community Kitchen Chef's Challenge. Defending champion from the Uptown Cafe, Michael Cassidy, the godfather of the restaurants here in Bloomington, the owner. Chef Adam Knopfsinger. Sous Chef Hermes Rashti.
- Chef number two, from the story in, in Brown County, Indiana, Michael Warden, and sous chef, Joe Vincent. Come on out, guys. And chef, last but not least, chef number three from Indiana University, dining and former champion, Eric Bueno.
- Sous Chef Alex Quarles, come on guys. This is their arena, ready for the competition. Eric? Thank you very much. Alright gentlemen, welcome to the arena. Thanks for making that long walk out here. Now, head back to the green room so we can talk about you.
- It's my pleasure now to introduce Tim Clower, the Assistant Director of Community Kitchen and our, I don't know what you call it, Executive Producer of tonight's event. He made all this happen, so welcome Tim. You are about to hear, well let's make sure they're in the green room. Hey guys, can you hear me? Nope. Nope, all right. Secret ingredient time, secret ingredient time.
- Tim is now retrieving the secret ingredient, the main crux of the biscuit, as we call it here at Chef's Challenge. It has been under lock and key with our accounting agency. I don't even know who it is. Eric doesn't know what it is. The only person who knows is this fellow right here. And now... We're pretty certain it won't be the wrong secret ingredient this year.
- This reminds me back in the day of the wild beat, right, Jeff Meese? Wild beats. All right. Beats. It is now my pleasure to reintroduce Adam Knopfsinger and his sous chef, Hermes Rashti.
- Adam and Hermes. Adam and Hermes, you guys are welcome to look at the pantry while you're waiting. Check out what we've got. So Adam is the executive chef at Uptown Cafe, local spot we all love, great location. We'll be celebrating their 50th anniversary here very soon. Let's give it up for Uptown Cafe.
- The chastities are down here in front, so there'll be no throwing instructions. You've got to be impartial, impartial. So there will be a 10-second countdown that will start while I'm probably in the middle of me talking, if it hasn't already. And as I said, each chef has 60 minutes to prepare their dish. So you'll soon see the 10-second countdown in front of me. And then the next chef will start 15 minutes after that.
- So while Adam and Hermes are getting their ingredients ready, it's a good time for me to remind you, we do have a silent auction going on in the back. Another way to raise funds. There's a ton of great items back there. The silent auction will end at 7.15. And at 6 p.m., we will do a special live auction. This is my public debut of auctioneering. We will be doing a live auction of Chef Abel private dinner.
- If any of you have had that before and been able to take part in any of that, he does a phenomenal job. It's a private dinner for you and however many guests you want. And he works with you on the menu. It is a great, great treat. So Chef Abe will be joining me at 6 o'clock. Thank you very much for that. We'll be auctioning that off.
- So you'll hear me refer to this area as the arena tonight. These three chef teams are going to be battling. We figured it only appropriate to be in an arena. I will also be doing my best to channel my inner Alton Brown as I host tonight. This is a dream come true for me. I always love overseeing and watching and judging food competitions at Ivy Tech.
- And now to be able to do it on this stage is really, really fantastic. So real excited to be here with you all tonight as we get started any second. Now here we go. And the first chef begins in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. You may begin.
- Now, as Adam gets going and gets started, it's my pleasure to introduce a video, a little video about Adam and his culinary journey. Adam Noffsinger, I'm the executive chef at the Uptown Cafe. How long have you been cooking, Adam? I graduated culinary school in 2004, so well over 20 years by this point.
- So what has had the biggest influence on your cooking over the years? Early in my career, it was the chefs that I worked for. I mean, I went to culinary school in New York State and then went and worked in restaurants in New York City, which, you know, the level of professionalism, the level of excellence there is really outstanding. So, I mean, the chefs I worked for there, guys like Cornelius Gallagher, Daniel Balloud, were hugely influential on
- Yeah, kind of how I approach the profession and the craft is, you know, as a professional. And then I've moved a lot. Ryan LaRoche, who I worked for in Chicago, or Levi Mazic, who I've worked for a couple of times, all great chefs, all offered a mentor role as far as technique and cooking skills, but then also how to be a professional, how to be a chef and the manager since the word as well.
- Do you have a dream place that you would like to travel and cuisine that you would like to eat? I lived in Japan for several years, so Japanese food. My mind has been blown already, you know, because just having the experience of living over there and getting to really dig pretty deeply into the cuisine and the techniques and the products there. But every time I've been back, it's just foodie, a Flonarians paradise over there. And I spent some time in Palermo and Sicily and just like the
- those kind of bright, vibrant flavors of the Mediterranean are super inspiring and delicious. Do you have a favorite ingredient currently that you like to work with? The local products start to percolate in the spring, but it really kicks off in the summer and you've got the farmers market in full swing, products coming closer to home. You're getting things from maybe Michigan or hopefully Indiana or the Midwest as opposed to California or
- in complete off-season if you have to get things from South America or whatever. So just what's coming in fresh now. We're kind of starting to get into tomatoes, getting into stone fruit, things like that. Just cooking seasonally is a lot of fun. So you won last year. You're defending the title as your second year in the competition. How are you going to approach the competition this year?
- because obviously it's gonna be something seasonal, it's gonna be something local. So just sketching out a rough idea of what those options are likely to be. A dish that is suitable for a fig is also gonna probably be suitable for a peach, is also gonna be suitable for another sweet fruit, a plum or an apricot or whatever. So kind of figuring out, getting a rough framework for a certain type of product and then just having that at the ready
- to then walk in and execute. But of course, just like last year, you gotta be ready to, you know, to improvise and make changes on fly. So, you know, depending on the condition of, you know, the pantry ingredients that are available or what's in the coolers and how, you know, how the products look. And so it's, you know, you plan, you make a pretty complete plan, but then, you know,
- 30% of that goes out the window in the first 10 minutes, so. So what style of food do you have at your restaurant and do you have any favorite dishes? It's our kind of Hoosier interpretation of what, you know, Creole and Cajun cuisine is. As far as favorite dishes, I really like our gumbo yaya. That's a dish that I, you know, I kind of reworked our gumbo a little bit after going to New Orleans a couple of times and tasting what the gumbos are like now because
- It's evolved and gumbo's look and taste different than they did 30 years ago when Michael was kind of putting in place a lot of his recipes. So that's one that I like eating it and I'm kind of proud because I feel like it reflects the style of gumbo that people are eating in New Orleans more now. We do a lot of weekly specials that are great.
- I love these classic New Orleans dishes, you know, the wall-line mouillere or a smothered pork shank, things like that. I mean, it's, you know, some of those dishes are a little bit rib-sticky for the weather we're having right now, but at the end of the day, those are the ones that when I taste, I say, you know, you can taste the curry, you can taste what I like to think is a good respect for the traditions of New Orleans pork.
- Great video, thank you. Yeah, there we go. Give him some early cheers as he figures out his menu and what he's gonna prepare. He's over there writing away. All right, at this time, I wanna chat a little bit about the silent auction. And you guys see it all in the back, back there. I see a number of people have perused the table. It's also in your program, some of the different items we have.
- So please take a look at that and look down those lists. There's a lot of great items and obviously all of the funds go to benefit Community Kitchen and the great mission that they have. So just real quick, while we're waiting and you're contemplating what bids you're going to make on the silent auction, I just want to remind you that will end at 7.15.
- And so don't delay. Get out there and write your name down. And then you spend the rest of the night washing the table to see who wrote their name after yours so that you can go knock them out. But I know this one. So have fun. Enjoy. We'd like to see some big wars going on back there. I would also like to take this opportunity to give a huge shout out to some
- And some of the folks that make this possible, particularly Nicky Gears, Nicky Fowler, Nicky Burr again. I saw you walking out of there, Nicky. Thank you, thank you. I'd like to thank Nicky and Nicky. Nick's one of them. He's organizing chess and organizing backstage, but Nicky, thank you very much. I'd also like to give a big thanks to Joe Cockhorn and Kayla Cockhorn from Joe Cockhorn's Fill Warner's and Arcade Rock Films for all the work that's been going on around that. I'm not just here because I feel super cool.
- Thanks to that, so thanks for all the work you guys have done. And we're always just thanking you in our senior program, but Kyla, thanks also for the posters and offline transport with us.
- We've got a minute or so and then we'll come back and help you with our next shot. Hope you're enjoying your salad. You notice the surprise ingredient? Has anyone figured that out yet? Has anyone figured that out?
- Are you swaying your power with the station?
- We have a new room, new kitchen, a couple new chefs, and we have to really wash our secret ingredients. So for now, that's what we're doing.
- not really much more to progress at this point, because we really haven't started to much cook now. So anyway, back to you, Eric. Thank you. Thanks, Rag. You can just hang on to that. OK, great. Hey, we got it worked out. Thanks, Joe. All right. Thanks. Thanks for that update, Rags. All right, here we've got two minutes, and then we are going to reintroduce chef number two.
- Enjoy your salads and we're gonna go peruse, I think I'm gonna go peruse the auction items. I don't think there's any prohibition on the MC signing up for stuff, so I don't know. If there was, I make the rules now, so I've got the microphone. But yeah, it's really interesting rags on the dirty beats. Yeah, the dirty beats. I've laid down some dirty beats in my day. I know, dirty beats, dirty feets. Anyone, anyone?
- Yeah. But it'll be really good. I'll tell you that. But it is really different because it's one of those things you guys don't think about. Being a chef up here, these guys probably had to prep for Taste of Bloomington and their regular clientele and whatnot. Then you have this competition. It's a great competition for Community Kitchen. It's a fundraiser. But these guys are true professionals. They do this for a living. So they do get butterflies. And they're in front of a lovely audience like you. Usually we're back in the kitchen with walls behind us and around us.
- You know, being out in front of people is a little bit different. So these guys, we really appreciate them coming out here and doing this. We appreciate you guys spending the money and your time to come down and support Community Kitchen. All right. Thank you very much, Rags. Yeah, Rags mentioned Taste of Bloomington. Anybody out there yesterday? One of the eight gajillion people. Join me out there. Thank you for not elbowing me. Thank you. Never seen this before. It was an awesome event. If you weren't able to get out there, I...
- recommend check out Facebook and all the pictures. I've never seen Kirkwood so packed. It was awesome. Never. Not in 50 years I've been on Kirkwood. That's the most people I've ever seen down there. It was great. Weather was perfect. It was a fantastic event. It was fantastic. So congrats to all the Taste of Bloomington participants and organizers. It was awesome.
- Yeah, this takes a lot of knife work. He's got the flank steak going, so you really got to take that extra silver skin and fat off of there. So this is the prep in this year's competition. I think it's a little more accelerated than it has been in the past. And I've done most of these, so I'm pretty good at it. Even though I'm getting older, I forget a few things. But it takes a lot of work and a lot of prep to get this just right. And the stuff that they'll make is unbelievable that they could do in 60 minutes in front of all you people. So I'm glad you're here to enjoy this.
- The next chef will begin in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Let's bring them out. It is my pleasure to reintroduce Chef Michael Warden and his sous chef, Joe Vincent. All right, guys, you are ready to go.
- Get after it. So we are going to go ahead, Chef Worden, and we're going to get you started now. So go ahead.
- Jeff Worden is formerly of the Story Inn, and we are excited to have him here with us today. And so without delay, I'm going to introduce his video, and we're going to learn a little bit more about him as he peruses the pantry and gets ready to start cooking.
- Story Inn. I'm Mike Warden. Call me Chef Metro. Metro's my nickname. What style of food service do you have here at Story Inn? I wouldn't quite call us fine dining, but we're elevated casual dining is what I would call it. I try to do like a fine dining spin on like country style cooking. How long have you been cooking? I started my first job
- was at McDonald's when I was 16, so just shy of 20 years now, I think. I've worked in all sorts of different places, been a sushi chef, I was a butcher at a grocery store for a little bit, I've been a baker, I've done pretty much anything, you know, from the bottom to the top, I've done just about almost everything. What has had the biggest influence on your cooking?
- I think for me, it was that early 2000s wave of when the Food Network Channel came out. It's kind of corny, but like we watched like the Good Eats, Alton Brown. That was a big influence on me. I was the science guy, you know, in high school and I loved math and science. I took every math class in my high school.
- And we did good eats. He'd just break down the science of what's happening and the chemistry. And I'd take that and experiment. And my dad was pretty supportive of me in that way. He'd just give me money, go to the grocery store. And I was cooking dinner, because it was just me and him at the time. Do you have a dream place that you would like to travel and eat? I love Italian food. So Italy would be the spot for me.
- My grandfather Sicilian, like from Sicily, Sicilian. You know, he moved here in the like 40s. So, and that was a big part growing up is, you know, we had every Sunday we'd get together a big family dinner. Favorite ingredient that you currently or have always liked to work with? Right now I've been working with saffron a lot. I'm trying to do like weird stuff with saffron.
- Working on it, like trying to do like a saffron ice cream, I think would be cool. But it's in my risotto and it's fantastic. And it's like that, like, it's almost like butter without butter. And so a lot of stuff, if I make a vegan dish, I'll just sneak it in there because it tastes like kind of like butter a little bit. And people will be like, man, I can't believe this is a vegan dish. You know, like, yeah, it's like, you know,
- Just a couple strands of saffron in there makes a huge difference. So this is your first time in the competition. What's your approach? I have some stiff competition, so I'm just going to try to knock it out of the park and do something. I'm very good at working on my feet, so I'm going to try to do something weird and just wow the judges with my creativity.
- because I think that's my best quality. You know, these two guys, they're crazy good. And they're probably gonna stick to the script with their stuff, I'm thinking. So I'm gonna try to knock something, you know, out of left feet. All right, good luck Metro.
- It's over to you. Let's get an update on how Adam's doing over there, him and Hermes. Yeah, we're going to marinate some flank steak. So he's cleaning off the silver skin and fat and going to cut up a little bit and marinate it in some vinegar, probably a little bit of a citrus, maybe a little bit of sugar. With the beets, he's going to accompany some freshly sliced Brussels sprouts with the beets. So it'll be a little saute with that also. So it'd be nice to see what kind of flavor profile is on that.
- like a great, great combination. So when the keys to this competition is to have everything ready to go. So the seasoned veteran already had his water going over here. He's probably going to be blanching a few things. So that is a huge factor to get your water boiling. So he's got everything going. And Hermes is going to town with the beets. He's not wasting anything. He's chopping the tops and the greens also. So we're using the meat of the beet, so to speak, and also the greens.
- Because the greens have a great flavor and a great profile and texture. So you just have to treat them correctly. And so like I said, it's a tremendous part of the competition here because you have to prep not only the beet itself, but also the greens on the bottom. So think about that when you guys go to the farmer's market and whatnot. Don't waste those tops. They're great in the salad or saute, depending on which one they are. So if you're not sure, you can Google it. Or call me and ask me.
- Anyway, yeah, we're going along here. These guys are cool as a cucumber over here. I mean, they've done this stuff before. Like I say, the competition in front of all you people, you know, is a little different, but these guys do it every day in the back and sweated away in the kitchens of the cafe. So anyway, that's where we're at. Any questions, Eric, you want to know? Thanks, Rags. I was, no, I was in the back watching them clean the beats a minute ago and I thought, you know what I need?
- I need a sous-chef. Yeah, there you go. I need a sous-chef. So I'm going to see if Joe's available. Yeah, he'd be good at that. OK, go ahead, Eric. Thank you very much. All right, it's my pleasure now to reintroduce our third team chef, Eric Bueno, and his sous-chef, Alex Quarles. Come on out, fellas.
- All right, guys, you are gonna stand by. You're welcome to peruse our food pantry over here. You can see what items you might want, but you can't start cooking yet. We'll have a 10-second countdown here in a second before you guys can start cooking, but feel free to peruse the pantry.
- So Eric recently moved over to IU catering. You'll hear more about that in his video. He's got a pretty big job keeping students fed. I've got two college kids at home. I know what a traumatic event that can be trying to feed them.
- So Metro's getting set up over there, rags. It looks like things are starting to shape up a little bit. It's shaping up. The competition down here is incredible. It's hot, it's sweaty. These guys are ready to duke it out. Over here we're going with a little different prep. We're going with marinated pork and a beet salad. So we're going with a more fresh ingredient over here with the marinated pork and a little more of a salad.
- doing also Mike he's on it man he's like having a great time here ready to throw some food together for us here for community kitchen we got steam going off over here in the uptown kitchen my goodness I can't see crazy
- Once again, both chefs back in the, in the commissary back here cleaning away on the bees. I said, this is a big competition. The judges do not want to taste any grit in those, in their salads or in their entrees of this piece. So this is big, man. This guy's really got to clean those bees.
- folks, now's a great time to watch our chefs and see what our chefs are up to. I know, take a look at our judges. Watch how intently they're watching the prep. Remember, part of the scoring is food preparation. There's techniques, there's cleanliness, all of those go into play here. So take a look at our chefs and kind of watch and see what they're doing and how they're
- how they're setting everything up and you can get a sense of what a professional kitchen looks like and how they really are going to make magic in just 60 minutes.
- Chefs are cooking away. We'll be starting our countdown here for team three shortly. And don't forget, they're prepping food for 100, one dish.
- for the 10 second countdown. Team three, are you ready? Eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Team three can start cooking. Good luck, Eric. All right, hey, you may have noticed we had a little slight technical hiccup with
- Team two start. So they lost their five minute prep time that all the other teams got. So we've added five more minutes back to their time. So if you're wondering, hey, why did they get five more minutes? That's why. So Metro, you got five extra minutes. You're welcome. And now I want to tee up a video of Eric Bueno, chef from IU catering.
- to explain a little bit more about his background and his philosophy. I'm Eric Bueno. I've taken over the chef de cuisine position at Indiana Memorial Union. I'm overseeing the catering department and all the concepts here inside the building. It's a definitely new environment for me.
- coming from a very small restaurant to such a big operation. It's a good learning curve and good experience. So what style of food service would you say you have here? So here in the IMU alone, we cater to a wide demographic. We have a hotel. We do a lot of conferences. So we have places like this, the vault, where hotel guests can come and hang out after whatever they're
- meeting was or event was. At the same time, we're still catering to the students as well. So there's some concepts upstairs that are more of the cafeteria style. And then the one I'm focusing on most is the catering department, which is a wide array of clients and different menus and a lot of fun stuff. How long have you been cooking?
- You know, I try to think back and officially it's going on, you know, 18 years or so. I think my first official job was in high school, just working fast food after baseball practice. You know, the more I think about it, it kind of goes back further with my home life and, you know, my mom and my grandparents were kind of in the restaurant business and I just kind of grew up in it. So what has had the biggest influence on your cooking and your style?
- I was just, you know, low experience, low training. I just kind of desired more. I would just spitball and do fancy plates just at the bar I was working at. And that just kind of morphed and I would do, you know, turned into, I would cook for the employees of the month. And then, you know, as I started to look for a better job and found Feast, I think it was just a good,
- situation where I was able to grow and learn. Certainly made some mistakes, but learned from the people around me, learned from the books I read and the stuff I started seeing online. Do you have a dream place to travel and eat, a certain type of auzine? It definitely morphs almost day to day. I'll wake up and kind of have this craving or feeling or just curiosity.
- And then I'll try to run with that and study up on it and do some research. And that is, I've circled back in the past to kind of my small cultural background where I'm half Hispanic. My stepdad moved over here from Nepal. So I just recently took a trip to Mexico for the first time. So I got to see a little bit of that authenticity there.
- And so the next place on my mind is going over to India and Nepal and seeing some of those cultures and how they're cooking, how they're eating, and kind of tie that into what I already know. Do you have a favorite ingredient you like to work with? The short answer is, it circles back to stuff I haven't tried. If there's something I see and I'm like, I haven't made that or I haven't tasted that, I try to gravitate towards that and
- not because I need to further for my job. It's just like a general curiosity. Okay, can I get this under my belt? What's that looking like? As I have grown older, as we all do, some things may be a little simpler at home, just dealing with a new job, new responsibilities, trying to get that balance in there, but I'm still always drawing back to just new techniques
- What can I learn? What can I teach myself? So what is your approach in preparing for the competition? Having kind of a template of what we're going to do, what your strengths are. We're going to look at that for myself and Susha. And then really the blueprint is just have fun. At the end of the day, just go out there and do what you like doing, what you're good at, and hope for the best.
- Team number one, and team number, I don't know if team number one is trying to suck up to me, because Spetzl is like one of my favorite things. So there we go. As a good German boy. I think they read your profile. You know what I mean? And that's why I was just telling Armez, this is a, to make Spetzl, not everybody can do that. You got to make the batter right. They flavor it up with some dill.
- and some probably salt, a little bit of pepper. And what you got to do, you have to cook it the right amount of time in the boiling water, because you want to al dente. It's like making fresh pasta, but even a little bit more delicate, because you're doing it live in front of you people. And after you cook it for a couple minutes, you got to throw it in an ice bath. So there's a lot of technique going on here that we see in competitions on the cable and streaming and whatnot. This is live right in front of here. You guys paid good money for it.
- I hope you're getting entertained, because this is fantastic. The other good thing about Chef 1 over here, it's really starting to smell great over here. This marinade is fantastic. You can smell that balsamic, some thyme, some garlic. They're really getting at it over here. Hey, Rags, it'd be OK. Hey, folks, it's OK if you want to come up and see what they're doing, take some photos, that kind of stuff. You wander around. Yeah. Wander around. Come on up. If you don't want to get too close, you can just go in and out. Just let me know.
- Just don't crowd around too much. He's got to go in and out to the pantry. But yeah, they'd love that. They love this kind of stuff. Oh, Michael here, we're going to town on this pork loin. He's slaving away so all you guys get your own very well done portion of pork loin here. He's getting crazy with this risotto over here. That's why he's got this boiling water going on. I don't know if you guys can smell that. But you watch his profile and his little video,
- He's a saffron freak. He's got saffron in with some coconut milk, some chicken broth, some sage. This guy's got going on. He's throwing some crazy flavors in there. He's got a twist I'm sure everybody's going to really enjoy. I said this competition, especially with this using of the beet, there's a lot of meticulous prep going on. And so the presentation of the food, the taste of the food, the feel of the food is very important because this is really meticulous secret ingredient to use.
- They're going at it over here. And this marinade is more of an Asian flavor. We got some ginger going on, some garlic. So I think we got Spetzel over there in booth one. We've got Risotto going over. Can you hear me? Risotto going to booth number two. I'm really not sure going on your booth number three, but I'll reveal that to you here in the next few minutes. Eric, I think that
- Eric is going to his roots a little bit with some of those ingredients I saw when I peeked into his pantry items. Hey folks, now it's high time. We're going to learn about our secret ingredients. So learn a little bit more about our secret ingredients. So we're going to cue the video now and learn about beets.
- I'm Lynn Schwartzberg, one of your judges this evening, and we're here to talk about the secret ingredient, beets. Now beets have an interesting history. They go back to ancient times, started in the Mediterranean, and they were actually a sea plant that grew along the shorelines. They were known as sea beets. When they were first cultivated, they were actually cultivated for their leaves, which were thought to have nutritional and medicinal qualities.
- And it was the Romans who first cultivated beets for the root itself. Now beets are interesting because they're able to be grown across the season, even into the winter time. And most beets are grown for sugar. Once it was found out their high sugar content, they became one of the largest sources of sugar production in the world. Beets are long considered to be an aphrodisiac. In fact, if you read about Aphrodite, she ate beets.
- to give her that amorous quality. There are frescoes at Pompeii of beets, again, because of their aphrodisiac quality. Beets are very, very high in folate, vitamin C, and fiber. They also can have some adverse effects if you eat too many beets. So a portion of about a cup per day is the maximum that is considered healthy.
- Too many beets can cause outbreaks of gout, which affects a lot of people. And also, if you're diabetic, you have to be really careful about your sugar intake and keep away from those beets. Now, we know that in Russia, borscht is a very, very popular dish made from beets. Back in the early 2000s, 90s in this country, beets became a very trendy vegetable. And I remember beet Napoleons
- goat cheese and beets and salads, and they became very chic. It's gonna be so interesting to see tonight what our three amazing chefs do with this earthy, gorgeous red vegetable, beets. Let's give it up for beets, our secret ingredient, beets. They're having a moment, they're having a moment.
- We got the beat baby, let's go. We got the beat Rags, we got the beat. Alright Rags, let's get an update on Eric and Joe. What have they got going on over there? They've got something totally different going on. See the thing is they had no idea what these other people were doing so it's kind of amazing the kind of idea he came up with. Over here we're doing a chicken curry so we got beef on one corner, pork in the middle.
- chicken on the end. He's doing more of an Indian type thing. We're doing a beet yogurt naan. So he's keeping his fingers crossed that that naan rises just right. Yeah. He's laying on the line, isn't he? So we have spetzle on the one side, risotto in the middle, and naan on the end. So we have three very diverse dishes going on here. And knowing the creativity of Eric and the kind of
- and the kind of brain that he goes with. He's also going for a crazy texture and crazy color. He's doing that beat to make that non-purple. Purple is one of my favorite colors. I'm sure all of you love purple also. So anyway, that's where we're going. I mean, he's using every part of the secret ingredient. He's making a non out of the secret ingredient. And don't tell him what else to do with that secret ingredient. So anyway, we got chicken on the one side, pork in the middle.
- Beef on the end. Everybody's using beets in a lot of different ways, a lot of different flavors. Thanks, Rags. You got it, Eric. Pretty exciting. Oh, I'm very excited. While the chefs cook a little bit, how about we auction off dinner cooked by Chef Abel, a private dinner for you. So all right, I know everybody's watching the chef. Where is Abel? Here he comes. Here's Chef Abel.
- All right. All right, last year we raised $3,200 for dinner with Chef Abel. I understand, oh, wait, hold on, I'm getting hand signals. $3,200, no. $32,000 for Chef Abel's dinner? For one dinner? Chef Abel's dinner was $32,000? No, wait, hold on. What are you saying to me, Vicki?
- I don't know, two, one, zero, zero, $2,100. Last year, I can do math. Last year, we raised $2,100 for dinner with Chef Abel, private dinner. But I think we can do better this year. So we're gonna start the bidding at $1,000. Private dinner, Chef Abel comes into your house.
- He does whatever menu you want, or he meets you wherever you want to go. He told me, where'd you go? Lake, where'd you go? You did like a hot dog. Twin Lakes, out at Twin Lakes. They did like a big, huge picnic thing one year. So he'll do everything from that to a private dinner for anniversaries, birthdays, you name it. Just special occasions, or just because, you know, you want to help the community kitchen out, and Chef Abel's volunteered his time.
- Can I throw something at you? Please throw something at me. Yes, I was at Abel's. He catered from last year's auction. I was at the event. And it was awesome. I mean, everything was top of the line. Presentation is beautiful. Had a great time. Outdoor venue. He's worth every penny. Trust me, this guy knows what he's doing. Just want to throw that out there. Get a little extra money. There you go. Sure thing. All right. So let's start the bit. So there's a little bit on the honor code here because
- We don't have paddles or anything. So if you want to like hold your, you know, wave your hand, drop a beat, something like that. Ba dum bum, thank you. And that way I'll know. So let's start the bidding at $1,000. Who's got $1,000 for private dinner with Chef Abel? Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. There we go. We've got $1,000. Thank you very much. Who's got $1,250? Who's got $1,250 for dinner with catered by Chef Abel?
- 1,000, I got 1,000. You don't want me to do this. You guys don't want me to go down this road, do you? I got 1,000. Here's an order, $12.50. $12.50 dinner with Chef Abel. Chef Abel, come into your house. He'll cook you an amazing dinner. All right, what do we got? What do we got? Thanks, thanks, thanks. I'll keep it up. I will not give up my day job. All right, we're at $12.50. We got 1,000. I'm looking for $12.50. Who's got $12.50? Chef Abel, come into your house. Cook your dinner. What's that?
- Jeff, Jeff, Chef Mies. 1,500, 1,500, we now are up to 1,500. Thank you, Chef Mies. 1,500, I got 1,500, I got 1,750, I got 1,750. Do I hear 2,000? Do I hear 2,000? Do I hear 2,000? We gotta negotiate over here. You can do 2,000.
- You're good for 2,000? We're good for 2,000. I get up to 2,250 and we'll beat last year's record. 2,250, 2,250, we're at 2,250. All right, we got 2,250. I got 2,500, 2,500. I gotta come back for some more negotiations. 2,500, 2,500. We're at 2,500. Chef Mies, all right, there we go. Do I hear 2,750?
- Do I hear $2,750? Anyone, anyone, anyone? Chef Abel, look at him. Look, he's ready. He's ready. He wore his chef coat here today. He is ready to go. He is ready to go. We're at $2,500. Do I got $2,750? $2,750. $2,600. I hear $2,600. We are at $2,600. All right. Chef Mies, we're back. We're back over here. I keep wandering back to this corner.
- How many people? Great question. I asked this question earlier and Chef Abel said it's really up to you. He gets a lot of the food donated. He's able to really leverage and make this money go a long, long way. Uh-oh, here we go. Yes, this is what we were looking for, folks. We are in the arena. We are in the arena. All right, here we go. We're at 26.
- We are at $3,000. Dinner with Chef Abel. $3,000. Are we at $3,250? $3,100? No, no. All right, we're at $3,000. Anyone out here? Anyone out here? $3,100? $3,100? Last chance. Last chance. We're at $3,000. $3,000 going once. Going twice.
- We're negotiating. We're negotiating. 30,000 going once, going twice. Hold on, we're still in negotiations. You need a mediator? We need a mediator? All right. All right. Sold to Chef Mies. Congratulations. Thank you, sir.
- Thank you, Chef Abel. Thank you, Chef Mies. $3,000. Thank you, Chancellor. Yeah, you bet. Chef number one has 10 minutes and 37 seconds to go. Let's hear it for Adam and Hermes. Things are moving. Steaks are cooking.
- Oh man, it does smell great over here. It does. It's crunch time for these guys. I'm leaving them alone. I'm standing in their way. 10 minutes, man, ready to play. No, it doesn't smell great down here. This is the best part of the job, being right here, let me smell this stuff. I get to taste it too, so we're great. Hey, so I just kind of want to give a quick rundown of when you bought your ticket today, when you make a silent auction bid, where your money's going to, and what is
- what the community kitchen is doing for our community. Last year we served over 300,000 meals and healthy snacks to Monroe County residents. How about that? 300,000, let's give that up. All right. 58% of the kitchen's patrons are children. 9% are seniors.
- Community Kitchen provides two prepared meals every weekday, delivered for free by volunteers to HIV positive residents in partnership with IU Health Bloomington's Positive Link program. Community Kitchen also provides meals to seniors. They feed children through the Boys and Girls Club partnership, Girls Inc., and the child care program at Middleway House.
- The community kitchen also provides backpacks of weekend food supplies to over 550 children at 25 local schools during the school year and to about 135 children in low income neighborhoods throughout the summer. The kitchen delivers lunch to children in 10 low income neighborhoods each summer while school is out.
- And Community Kitchen provides warm dinners from the food truck at mobile sites, serving Ellitsville three days a week and Bloomington three days a week. How about that? Let's give it up to Vicki and her team for all they do for our community. And they stretch every dollar. So thank you so much. They're able to leverage donations. They're able to leverage commitments from community partners. So thank you so much for all you guys do.
- We are gonna take a, hi, hi, hi. Hi, I'm gonna take a slight break while we have like, how many minutes, what do we got here? What's on the timer? What do we got? 754 for Chef Adam. So he and Hermes are gonna just crush it here in the last seven and a half minutes. And we're just gonna enjoy that, watching that, and I'm gonna stop. Thanks.
- Chef number one, you have five minutes.
- All right, chef one, two minute warning. Two minute warning.
- Chef number one has 30 seconds. Chef number one has 15 seconds. All right folks, here we're gonna do a countdown. 10, nine, eight, seven, six,
- Five, four, three, two, one. Chef one, you are done. Congratulations, Adam. All right, chefs now have five minutes. So chefs will now plate. And rags will now give us an update on how teams two and three are doing.
- as Adam and Hermes plate their dish. Yeah. Back here, Michael, we've got some pork loin grilling on the Blackstone flat top. Got slightly marinated. He started on the, we got some beet sauteing and the cast iron skillet here. Cast iron is awesome to cook beets in. Of course, brings out really that sweetness that we have in that beet, bringing out those sugars. And then we're going with the beet salad. He's got some finely julienned pears.
- That's a nice product we have here. The garlic he has, the marinade he has on his pork is some ginger, garlic, a little salt, a little pepper. So we're cruising along with that. The chicken is being prepared over here by Alex. Looks like we have chicken thighs and the naan looks like it's coming along pretty well. We're grating through some fresh tomatoes and a couple other things here. I think he's making for a salad. We've got some aromatics being sauteed off.
- We have some nice onions going on and some really good Indian flavors happening over here with Eric Bueno and Alex. They came well prepared. They have a couple of big Rondo's over here. They're sauteing, but those those big round flat pans that you see in restaurants and hopefully at home, but he's really utilizing some excellent. He's got the mortar and pestle going on. He's using the tops of the greens also, or the tops of the beets using their greens for a wonderful little salad.
- Three totally different flavor profiles, three totally different aromas going on back here. And the flavors will be awesome, I'm sure. And all of you will get to taste. I think it's the first year we've had where everybody gets to taste a little bit of everything. That's awesome. So we'd love everybody for the great camera work that we're providing here. The roving reporter and the roving camera just brings it to your home in living color, as we used to say.
- Got a wonderful rare medium rare on this flank steak happening in the presentation we have for Chef Adam from the Uptown. So our different stages here are starting to get it coming. He's coming together over here in table number two with our dish. Michael Warden has that and over here and Eric Bueno and Alex are cruising along with their great
- Indian flavors that we're putting together. We have the beets, we have the beet greens, we have a great chicken, a marinated chicken. We have the naan happening. So there's a lot of stuff going on here and a lot of flavors, Eric. So we're coming along. It's awesome. Yeah. The plating going on with chef number one will be really interesting to see. It's gorgeous.
- You've got about 30 seconds, Adam. You've got about 30 seconds to get things ready and moving.
- All right, three minutes left on plating, Chef Adam, three minutes.
- One more minute on the plating. One more minute. It looks beautiful.
- All right, gentlemen, 20 seconds, 20 seconds. If you're ready, we can go. All right, let's go. All right, they're ready. So we're gonna clear a path and you can, Chef Adam, you can carry your plated dishes over to our esteemed judges. They are over there esteeming right now, waiting for you. Rags, I'll kick it over to you to,
- Chat with the judges. I'm headed that way. There's only three judges, but there's a fourth MC who will gladly eat your food.
- All right, folks, let's keep an eye over at the judges table. Chef Adam has just delivered his dish and we will now get some feedback from them. Hey, by the way, while we're waiting for the judges to jump into the dish and what they want to talk about, I want to remind you the silent auction is still open. There was a number of items that hadn't even been bid on yet.
- Those prices have been reduced. The starting prices have been reduced. So go back out there and take another look. All right, Rags, over to you. Chef Adam's gonna go through his wonderful dish he made here.
- We'll do a quick explanation, and we're going to have a little question and answer going on after that, so we can get a little clarification of what we have going. Adam? All right, folks. Chef Adam's about to explain his dish, one of the three dishes you will hear about tonight. So Chef Adam, take it away. Hold on. Microphone. Microphone check. Check, check. Drop a beat.
- Uh-oh. Uh-oh. I think the lapel mic and the hand mic are... Roasted beef flank steak, a little spetzle, beets three ways. We've got the greens sauteed. We've got a dice of the root that is also sauteed, and then a little pickled slice. And then for garnish, we've got some pickled mustard seeds. A little pop of texture and a little bit of acid, so please enjoy.
- There's a little bit of the pickling liquid from the sliced meats. Again, acid, a little sweetness. Enjoy. We're going to give them a second to taste a little bit, and there may be a couple more questions. All right, here we go here. Let's hear what they're talking about here.
- Here, Chef Strand, you got any comments? We're gonna use, oh, you haven't tasted yet. All right, well, what do you think about its presentation? No, gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. Beats, three ways, beautiful. Yeah, that's all I can say. All right, beats are still on the show. All right, thank you.
- Chef Adam, you got anything else you want to add about your dish? It's fantastic. Thanks, Chef. I like the three different uses of the beet here and excellent pop of flavor from the mustard seeds as well. I like that garnish. I think the use of the beet greens speaks to ingredient utilization, which I really appreciate. Plus, the flavor is
- just extraordinary with the with the spetzle and the very very rich beef that that brightness of the greens really pulls through. Spetzle cooked perfectly so good so authentic. Chef Chef Strand can you say that again we couldn't quite hear you what sorry. Spetzle perfect. Love hearing that. All right
- We'll let Chef Adam get back to work. Thank you, buddy. Appreciate it. All right, thanks. Big round of applause for Chef Adam and Hermes. All right, we got seven minutes to go for Chef number two, Michael and Joe. They are cooking right here. I just told him he had 10 minutes, a few minutes to go, and he said, we are right on time. So I love that. Love that. Confidence in the arena.
- Pork is looking good. Hey, we got our One World Catering team over here. How about a big round of applause for them? Take a bow. Take a bow. Wave. Everybody wave. Take a bow. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
- 75% of the events I attend, so thank you in advance and thank you for the past. Well, it would appear the dessert table has opened up.
- Don't forget your MC. Don't forget your MC and volunteers who need to come through too. We got a good shot of the purple naan going on over here. All right folks, I'm back here at the silent auction table. Remember bidding closes at 7.15. So you got about a half hour, maybe a little longer, 35 minutes for the bidding.
- I see some names have come on. All right. All right. Here we go. We've got a five-minute warning coming up. Chef Michael, five minutes.
- So folks, you may wonder, Chef Adam, they're still cooking. That's because they're making the dish for you guys. So they made the dish for the judges, and now they're making the dish for you guys. So there's some more cooking going on here. I did get one request from the audience for a close-up on the plated dishes when they're complete.
- and I did remind that table, you will get this up close and personal here very soon, so stand by. Yeah, that's another unique part of this competition because they're not only playing for the judges where they're getting the points from, they're also playing up for you guys. They're working hard for you. So I mean, it's two different phases of the whole operation. The first one's really for show, this next one's to go, so it's all for you guys.
- Two-minute warning, two-minute warning. Metro, this is your two-minute warning.
- And remember, Chef, after your time is up, you have 10 minutes to plate. So you've got about one more minute to finish cooking, and then you have 10 minutes to plate your dishes for the judges, for the judges.
- 30 seconds. All right, folks. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6.
- down. Well done, Metro. Well done. All right. Plate, what you got? You got 10 minutes now to plate. 10 minutes to plate. Hey, Rags, what are we doing over here? What's Eric got going on over here? Man, it smells good. I know. He's got some serious yogurt happening and the naans coming together.
- They sauteed those aromatics off just wonderfully. And now he's adding this coconut milk and a couple other things too. Oh, he's got the greens in there. And looks like guy with my salad in there also. Yeah, he's doing just an awesome curry over here. It smells wonderful because it's extremely exotic. The other ones are exotic also, but over here we have more exotic flavors and aromas. So the more that Indian,
- stuff going on over here. Now, we got Chef Michael plating up over here and it looks great. He's got some extra food too, so don't worry, you guys aren't gonna go away hungry. We got plenty of food up here. Eric, you got an extra portion for you too. Yeah, sweet. I was worried I wasn't gonna get to eat tonight, but I think I'll be okay. I think I'll be okay. I think you're in good company here. Got great caramelization going on with these chicken thighs going on on the Blackstone over here.
- Chef Alex is checking temperature, which is also very important. So these guys have all your bases covered. They're clean, they're competent, they're checking your temperatures out, and it tastes wonderful too. Hey folks, just a reminder, the signature cocktail tonight out at our bar is an Old Fashioned.
- knock yourself out, get an old-fashioned. Jeff Meese just handed me a poem about the beat. So, you know, while we finish watching Metro played up, I figured I would read you a poem about the beat. Courtesy of author Tom Robbins.
- The beet is the most intense of vegetables. The radish, admittedly, is more feverish, but the fire of the radish is a cold fire. The fire of discontent, not of passion. Tomatoes are lusty enough, yet there runs through tomatoes an undercurrent of frivolity. Beets are deadly serious. Slavic peoples get their
- characteristics from potatoes, their smoldering in quietude from radishes, their seriousness from beets. The beet is the melancholy vegetable, the one most willing to suffer. You can't squeeze blood out of a turnip. The beet is the murderer returned to the scene of the crime. The beet is what happens when the cherry finishes with the carrot.
- The beat is the ancient ancestor of the autumn moon. Bearded, buried, all but fossilized. The dark green sails of the grounded moon boat stitched with veins of primordial plasma. The kite string that once connected the moon to the earth, now a muddy whisker drilling desperately for rubies. I hope you enjoyed.
- The reading by Tom Roberts. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, Jeff, for bringing me beat poetry. Probably not what normal beat poetry is all about. All right, Metro, are you ready to go? All right. All right, Metro is ready. Oh, a little bit early? Here we go.
- Rags escort him over to the judges. Let's clear a path, clear a path. All right, here we go. All right. See if we can get some highlights of this. All right, Eric, you got a five minute warning. Five minutes to go.
- Okay, Chef Michael, why don't you give us a brief description of what you have so the judges know what they're tasting. All right, judges, today I've prepared for you a coconut risotto with sage and saffron, a beet and pear salad, and a marinated pork loin. I marinated the pork loin in soy and rice wine vinegar and honey and a couple other things. Should be delicious. I hope you enjoy it.
- So we'll let them taste a little bit. Why don't you hang right here, Chef, for a second. They're going to let them taste. They might give you a couple questions. You have a mic right there. Chef, can you tell us the beets, your beet preparation here? So we wash the beets. We wash the beets, and we peel them. And then we give them a quick saute. So they're hopefully on the al dente side. So you get that opening up the earthiness of the beet and the sweetness a little bit, but also still have a little bite to it for texture.
- Tell me about this risotto. I'm not tasting coconut. Did you use coconut milk? I used coconut milk, yes. Okay. This is a nice plate here, Chef. Thank you. Thank you. I love the little slaw on the top with the combination of beets and pear. It's a nice counterbalance to the richness of the risotto and the pork. So thank you. Thank you.
- Thank you, Chef. Everything's great. Go back and get yourself a plate up for everybody else. Appreciate that. Let's give them a big hand. Yeah, let's give it up. The colors up here are absolutely amazing. So thanks, everybody. Judges, enjoy.
- Okay, Eric, you got three minutes. Okay, he's gonna throw out this naan now. He's got this nice surface floured with his naan. He's gonna throw it out a little bit, get it flat. And we're cooking it on the flat grill, I believe. Is that where we're cooking the naan?
- Yes, we have a flat top going on on his Bunsen burn over here with a little torch. So he's kind of getting a nice crust on there, trying to toast it a little bit, get that texture and flavor to it. So he's improvising a lot over here. That's worth some points. His equipment he has, he's using a very creative way. Lin, we've never had none in our competition, have we? No. Two minute warning.
- Chef Eric, two minutes. Two minute warning. We're getting out of here. Is that beat naan? Hey, Rags, is that beat naan? Beat what? Beat naan? God, yeah. There's a lot of pinks and purples going on here. Whoever picked out the beet had a wonderful taste. I like the foresight here. So the one thing is this is a very brightly colored competition. And it tastes bright, too.
- You guys enjoying your meals so far out there? We've had a couple tastes going on. No, you guys haven't all been served. I'll shut up. You guys, just wait. Just wait. But the judges are really enjoying their food. They're having a great time. And very serious competition. So they're taking this. They're getting very meticulous on their judging here. Remember, the points are broken down in taste, presentation, sanitation, and prep. So a lot of points to get here.
- One minute remaining, one minute remaining. And then reminder, you'll have 10 minutes to plate after your one minute. Judges, how we doing over there? Thumbs up? All right, all right. Okay, we're finishing up over here, Chef 3, so anticipation, anticipation.
- 30 seconds. Oh, the first round of food is coming out to the tables. All right. Chef Adam's dish is making its way out. We're going family style. We've got 15 seconds to go. All right, this is our last countdown. We'll get everybody to help me here. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2,
- One, tongs down. Well done. And you got 10 minutes to plate now. 10 minutes to plate now, gentlemen. And all the other dishes are starting to make their way out, so enjoy your steak and beets three-way. And let's just not forget, you have
- You got 20 more minutes on the silent auction. The silent auction ends at 7.15. Silent auction ends at 7.15. At this time, folks, while we're waiting for them to plate up, I'd like to throw it over to the Moon Valley Farms video, learn a little bit about Moon Valley, where your beets have come from.
- here with Alan at Moon Valley Farms. I've lived here about 17 years. It's kind of been farming on and off different things. Right now it's just selling at the Bloomington Farms Market and we're growing mostly produce and eggs. I have pork. How many varieties of vegetables do you grow? I'm struggling along because I have a full-time job so it's like
- You know, I'm using the silage tarps to deal with weeds. After we harvest stuff, I can cover things up and make kind of stale seed beds. Yeah, and then we've got, I don't know, in total production, push it towards the nature and stuff. So now in addition to growing a variety of vegetables, do you have livestock too here as well? I had raised nine pigs this year. There's like 130 lane hens.
- I moved them around out on the pasture. And then the cows, actually, I moved to a neighbor's pasture. Graves across the road with them, a graze here with them, ran out of grass. So tell us about how beets are grown. I use mostly, I have just a bush seeder and I have like a little, that orange thing out that feels like a little deeper pot transplanter where I can transplant crops. So the beets, I've either direct seeded them or transplanted them.
- Kind of interesting. It's like dealing with weeds. If I seed them into flats, I have like three weeks before I have to transplant them. So it gives me that much more time to deal with weeds and then I'll plant them out. So I grow a few different varieties. They all seem about the same to me. I've tried growing golden ones or white ones. I kind of like the traditional red vege. Now, are they planted early in the season?
- just do successions of them. They're pretty quick crop. They don't take like a long season to grow. I don't know what they are, maybe 60 days or something. Usually what I'll end up doing is selling them with the tops. Some people like to eat the tops and then they'll boil or roast or whatever they want to do with the beets, steam boil, roast or grate them fresh and eat them in a salad that way. And then once the tops don't look nice, I take the tops off and then they'll store for months.
- A lot of people seem to like to make pickle beets. That's like a common thing when people are buying them at the market, I hear, you know. So how many people work on the farm? Well, they all work part time, so three. Now, what is your beet yield? Yeah, it all depends on how much rain we get. If I'm irrigating, if I keep ahead of the weeds or if the weeds end up taking over, a lot of times I'll get the bed ready.
- fertilize it, and then usually I'll flame weed it right before I plant it, and then as they're growing, I try to get it weeded. And then at some point, the beets get big enough, they kind of take over the bed where they suppress the weeds. How many beets are in a bushel? You know, an 80-foot bed, maybe I could get four bushels or something. How many beets? They vary a lot, get a bunch of little beets. Sometimes there's clumps of them, but if they're spaced out, then you can get really big beets so that
- it varies drastically, like how many beets you're gonna get out of a bed. Is there a taste difference between a small and a large beet? The biggest difference between the small and large is the ease of dealing with them. Like if you're gonna peel a beet, like if you boil it or something and then the skin comes off, like a baseball size beet, it's a lot easier to deal with than a bunch of little ones. But a lot of times people like the little ones, they'll roast them or with like potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, whatever.
- Now, how late can you harvest beets? Probably October somewhere, you know. They don't handle frost too well, the tops, but you could, if you want to cover them, I would say somewhere the end of October. Moon Valley Farm. We're in a valley on Moon Road. It's inappropriate.
- folks, there's about five minutes left in plating. But while we wait, don't forget, scan those QR codes, and you can vote on the People's Choice Award. That voting will be closing here soon, like momentarily soon. So hop on on the, pull out your phone, scan the QR code of your chef, and you can award them your
- people's choice. Great shots over here. Alright, now we're going to flick to the scoring video. Take a couple minutes here to explain the scoring. So without further ado, take it away.
- So the scoring tonight is based on 100 points. 25 of those points are going to be based on your organization and utilization of ingredients. Cleanliness skills, restaurant skills are very, very important and full utilization of the ingredients. We don't want to see big piles of food waste because a chef used a little piece of something. The second category is cooking skills and culinary techniques.
- The judges will be looking at what techniques the chefs use, whether they use a variety of techniques, braising, steaming, sauteing, grilling, for example. They're also gonna look at portion size, whether they're appropriate to the dish that they're serving, things of that nature. So that's the second 25. And 50 points are gonna go toward taste. And this is where it's really important.
- That secret ingredient has really got to shine through every other ingredient in the dish and be flavor-forward and blow those judges' palates away.
- Two and a half minutes left on the plating. While they wait, just a reminder, the silent auction ends in 13 minutes. Another shameless plug for the silent auction. Now's the time to run over there. Figure out who your competition is. As these guys plate, oh wow. Love the use of the dishes. Gorgeous.
- It's like a surprise. Look at that. It's like a birthday present. I know he's done this before, you can tell. That's awesome. He's got the wow factor going on. That's terrific. Look at the judges of the rubber neck and try to see what he's doing. Okay.
- We've got one minute on the plating. One minute on the plating. Everybody's super quiet right now, so I'm guessing you're enjoying your dishes. Yeah? Early results right after taking a big bite? It's all delicious. Awesome. 30 seconds. We've got 30 seconds of plating to go.
- All right, Eric, you got 15 seconds. 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Deliver your dish to the judges. Congratulations. Let's give it up. Congrats, Chef Eric. All right. Follow rags to the judging station.
- Chef Eric and his sous-chef Alex delivering their dishes. Hopefully you guys can see on the screen, they're delivering them in their bowl. Very Indian. All right, over to you, Rags. All right, what we have here today is a loose take on a biryani, a Indian rice dish traditionally baked in clay.
- a clay tandoor or something to that effect. So what I have on the bottom is saffron rice. On top of that is a beet chutney covered with a little bit of beet raita, yogurt, raw beets. Around the edge is coconut curry with the beet greens, kind of a play on the side. That is all topped with
- a beet naan, beet infused naan, and a little cilantro. Thank you, delicious. Can you hang here a second? Chef Eric. Chef Eric, how many ways did you use the beet in that? I want to say four different ways. I like to use everything. The beet greens, raw beet, roasted beets. I guess that would be three. There is beet in the naan as well, so that's my four. All right, thanks.
- Just hang here a second. I have a couple of comments. I'm going to grab your mics. Judges, there you go. Thank you. I have a quick question. Did you finish the naan on top of the cup? Did I see you put the naan on there to finish? The original plan was to somehow bake it. Of course, we can't do that here. So I've got it on the griddle on the bottom side. I torched the top to get the rise and the bubbles there.
- Okay, so tell me about the beet hash, melange, on top of the rice? Beet chutney is what I'm going with there. Beet chutney. What was that seasoned with? So that is seasoned with an Indian five spice, panchoran, one of my favorite blends there. So a little bit of that fried in the oil with some onion, the beets that were roasted on the griddle,
- and then steam to finish. Wow, Chef, this is really impressive. You have a lot going on here. I love the presentation. The naan bread is fantastic. I don't know how you pulled it off without using an oven, but it's impressive. Thank you. Thank you. Let's give it up for Chef Eric. Congratulations.
- to one more time give a big shout out to all of our sponsors for this evening if you check out in your program you can see who they all are and you know without them we really wouldn't be able to make tonight happen and the difference that you know they're that their donations make in the community kitchen furthering our mission and being able to help those those that need a little boost
- So thank you again to all of our sponsors. Let's give them all a big round of applause. Wow. That was pretty cool. All right, we got a few more minutes. We're going to talk about how much money we raised tonight. We've got six minutes left on the silent auction.
- Now's the time to elbow whoever you need to elbow out of the way to get that filled out. You've got two dishes. Most of you have two dishes by now. Let's see, what do we got? What's our thoughts over here? Hello, kind sir. It's all fabulous. Fewest words ever used. Well done, well done.
- Thanks. Don't forget, People's Choice Award, I think, is now closed. Is it closed? Is it closed? It is closed. People's Choice Award is closed. Did you want to vote?
- folks, for those of you that have had a chance to visit the dessert table already, which I think is most of you by looks of wandering around, you may have noticed the macrons on the table. Chef Stacy has made sure I pronounce it correctly. Those were made by 14-year-old Anthony Scott from Ellisville. He sells his macrons at the Farmer's Market. So make sure you check it out, the Farmer's Market out in Ellisville.
- It's my pleasure to welcome back Tim Clowers to the podium to give us the grand tally of how much money we raised tonight. Here you go, Tim. We raised over $28,000 this evening. Thanks to you. Thanks for your support. We are still tallying the silent auction items, so probably a little more than that, but thanks again for coming and thanks for the support.
- Thanks, Tim. So now we're just, as we wait for the final judge's tally, it would be a great time to go up. There's three minutes left in the silent auction. There's some people up there, vultures, if you will, who are trying to take your bid away from you. Don't let that happen. Don't let that happen. Get up there. Win that silent auction. There we go, there we go. That's the spirit. Once the,
- Now probably be a good time when you're done making your silent auction bids after we close silent auctions. Now might be a time you want to take a little comfort break because the judges are going to be tallying their votes and then we'll reconvene.
- Very exciting, very exciting. Martha, don't push, ow, Martha. Here we go, the last minute bidders coming in. That's right, yeah, run away with the pen, run away with the pen. Let's see, there's some good deals left here, there's some great deals in the next 30 seconds.
- 10 seconds left on the silent auction. We got two going at it over here. 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. All right. JP, well done. Well done. All right, the silent auction is closed, and I feel pretty confident, folks, that tonight,
- So thank you very much.
- best hundred bucks. You get amazing entertainment from your NC plus there's some good food.
- are going to receive some feedback from the judges. And then we're going to hand out the People's Choice Award. And then we're going to hand out the Chef's Challenge Award. And I turn it over. Lead on. All right. Thanks, chefs. Everyone, that was very impressive showing. We appreciate your hard work.
- and I know how hard it is, I've done it a few times myself. First off, Chef Adam, loved your plate. I thought all the flavors complimented each other very well, and I loved the presentation, and I feel like it all went extremely well together. So I appreciate that, thank you. Thank you. Okay, next, Chef Michael, once again,
- Excellent work. Love the use of the beet there in the slaw on top with the pear. I like that combination of beet and pear. That's a classic delicious combination. The pork was very well cooked and nice and tender, had a good flavor to it. So I appreciate your dish as well. Thank you. Thank you very much. And last but not least, Chef Eric. Beautiful presentation.
- Very creative use of the beat several different ways. And I love the risk you took of making the naan bread, which turned out very well. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I thank you all as well. I know how hard it is to cook in such a hot, fast way and to pull it off. And you all pulled it off. So very impressive.
- Chef Adam, you always amuse me because you are so calm. We're all going, oh my god, 10 minutes, 10 minutes. Very, very cool. Plating was beautiful, as Chef Corbin said, and the utilization of the beet greens, roasting beets, and pickling beets, and I have to say, my favorite part of your dish was the very, very rich buttery spetzle with the tang of the pickled beet
- and also the richness of the meat. That pickled beet really brought the whole dish together for me. Thanks. You're welcome. Michael, it was really, really pretty. The pork loin was a beautiful foil for that beet and pear slaw. It was really quite charming. I liked that quite a bit. I didn't pull the coconut in my taste buds, but I'm glad you know it was there, because I think with the pear and the beet, it would have
- presented a beautiful story. And Eric, incredibly impressive presentation. Biryani is one of my favorite dishes. And the spicing is just perfect. The raita is gorgeous. Utilization of beet in four different ways in the dish was really quite incredible. Thank you. Okay, Chef Adam, it is
- clear that you understand the ingredient, right? So the beets, the way that you knew what they were capable of doing and that you showcased that. So by pickling and roasting and using the greens and the fact that you knew not to overcook them, that you let something so beautiful and wild and local
- you know, really come through. It was amazing. So that was gorgeous. And I do have to mirror what was said about being so calm and clean. Like we were all just like, oh my gosh, everything was just right angles. And so it was the thing of beauty. So that was wonderful. So well done. Just A plus plus. And Chef Michael, you guys work so well together. And it was lovely to see it.
- The pairing of the beet and the pear was lovely. And the plating was lovely also, but the plate itself was just a little too small. So we couldn't appreciate it. But if it were just a little bit larger, it was kind of messy. We were all trying to keep the rice on there. But you know what? It was very good. And then Chef Bueno, you obviously understand
- flavor and are so creative and inventive. And the naan was perfect. It was so chewy and flavorful. Chef Stacey, I don't know if you know, but any time any of you mentions naan, you hear the crowd kind of, oh. Why? Oh, you didn't get the naan?
- That's good, thanks, thanks, thanks, next, next, keep going. So no, thank you, that was gorgeous. And just the presentation, lively and yeah, beautiful. All right, thank you. Big round of applause for all of our competitors in the arena. It's now my pleasure to turn the microphone over to Tim Clowers, who will, or you can do it over there with Rags' microphone. I think you're closer to the chefs.
- to announce the People's Choice Award winner. So without further ado, drum roll. Drop a beat, can we drop a beat? This year chosen by you is the People's Choice goes to Adam Knopfsinger. Adam. Congratulations, Adam. Adam, we got some state of the crowd for their wonderful votes. Thank you. It was a challenge, obviously. You guys saw us.
- Everybody enjoyed it. It's tough to cook for 100 people on a camp stove and, you know, two folding tables. But I think I think we all got there. So thank you very much. Congrats, Adam. And now, without further ado, Rags, you please announce our 2025 Chef's Challenge Champion.
- Adam Knopfsinger is our champion, 2025. Congrats, Adam. You got the double header going, Adam, congratulations. What else do you have to say? Nothing, it was just, this is a surprise seeing the way these guys worked and hearing their dishes. I didn't taste them, you know, so I can't speak to the execution or the seasoning, but every, you know,
- We were over there cleaning up, being the first ones to go, and as they were speaking about their dishes, dropping it off with the risotto and the pork, and then that just Indian feast we had from Eric. Everything I heard, I thought, oh, I should have done that. That's such a good idea. Oh, that sounds delicious. I wish I had done that. I'm thinking about my own. So it's a surprise and obviously an honor to be up here competing with these professionals. And at the end of the day,
- None of it's about our ego. It's all about what they're doing at the community kitchen and feeding our community and being a part of Monroe County and Bloomington and all that. So just happy to represent the uptown and have a little fun out here and enjoy ourselves before all the kids get back to town. Let's give it up for our judge, our contestants again. Thank you.
- If you got a silent auction item, don't forget to pick it up and pay for it. Both of those steps, please. Pay for it on the way out and pick it up. But again, thank you to everyone for coming out. Let's give a big round of applause to our judges. That could not have been easy. So thank you very much. And again, to Vicki and Jim from the Community Kitchen, thank you. Thanks again to all of our contestants.
- Thanks to Throck Morton's for putting on a great show tonight. Rags, it was so much fun working with you. Eric, right back at you. It was awesome. Thank you. Thank you all. Have a great night. Drive safe. Tip your bartenders.