The High School Culinary Challenge season culminates with its marquee fundraiser on April 30 at the Royal Glenora Club.
"This is our first time holding this event there. Our chef community, the organizers of this, we've collaborated with the club quite a bit," Peter Keith, who is part of the challenge's organizing committee, a former competitor, and the owner of Meuwly's, told Taproot. "Their executive chef, Steve Buzak, is a really good partner in all of the things that we do."
The fundraiser is called Hot Chefs Cool bEATS. It's a tasting-style mingler with stations by chefs from Fu's Repair Shop, Boa & Hare, DRTY Ice Cream, The Butternut Tree, Braven Restaurant, Pitt County BBQ, Super Amigos Mexican Street Food, Edmonton EXPO Centre, MEAT, The Butchery by RGE RD, and The Flavour Agency, a new catering concept from the team behind Filistix. The event also features libations and live music. Supporters include the title sponsor, Alberta Chicken Producers, as well as Alberta Pork, Alberta Milk, Egg Farmers of Alberta, Alberta Pulse Growers, Gordon Food Service, and HESCO.
The point of the fundraiser, which offers tickets starting at roughly $100, is to support future editions of the High School Culinary Challenge. The challenge itself tests students on their ability to master a uniform menu. This year, the menu was mulligatawny soup, pork back ribs, and a flourless chocolate cake. The challenge took place on March 17, and the team from St. Joseph's Catholic High School won gold, Dr. Anne Anderson High School's team received silver, and Bev Facey High School's team earned bronze.
"Over the course of four hours, the teams prepare all of this food together, and they're judged in the kitchen, usually, by NAIT instructors," Keith said. "They evaluate their food safety, their general skill and technique, their cleanliness, their organization, and their teamwork. That accounts for about half of their score. The other half of the score is on the overall taste of the dish and the presentation."
Keith has been part of the challenge since it began in 2008. At age 16, he competed for the first time. He returned the next year and received a NAIT scholarship. The culinary challenge has awarded roughly 40 of those scholarships since 2008, and today the endowments are named after founders Stanley Townsend, Simon Smotkowicz, and Jan Anderson.
"I think what (the challenge's founders) instilled in us was not only a sense of what it means to be a great chef and cook, to make really amazing food and run a great kitchen, but also what it means to be part of the community," Keith said. "The role that the culinary professionals should play in our city, as a chef, as a restaurant owner, someone at a hotel or a catering company, we are actually such a core part of so many events in people's lives."
Aside from the main competition and Hot Chefs Cool bEATS, the High School Culinary Challenge is working on the Alberta Chicken Challenge. Winning submissions for chicken recipes will be announced this month.