Due to Popular Demand…………………….Blog #53.

Hey everyone. Hope you are well. I (although completely knackered) am very well. I had a busy week so let’s get to it.

I had the Food Competition on Monday evening so it was an early morning at the resto in order to do the regular cleaning and do the orders before hopping in the car at 2pm and heading to the big smoke.  The Competition, (Discovered Culinary Competition) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnzDxUD5OFA , has the same format as the T.V. show Chopped. 4 chefs go head to head in a black box competition meaning you get a box of ingredients that are unknown to you until exactly when the competition starts.  Than you have 20 mins to come up with an appetizer. At the end of the first dish, they judge you and they vote one chef off. Then there is the entrée course with the dessert course being last.  After each round, a chef is eliminated until there is a winner. I was really hoping to make it past the first round as A) I didn’t want to be the first kicked off and B) that’s a big drive for a 20min job and then drive home.  Well, I got lucky. One chef actually didn’t show up so no one was eliminated after the first course. But the whole thing is on a points system so we still need to perform. My ingredients were as follows: shrimp, honey mustard, asparagus and chorizo sausage for the appetizer round; the entrée round included blood orange, cocoa powder, pistachios and Libre-Terre Korean beef short ribs. The dessert box held apples, ginger snaps, passion fruit juice and Greek yoghurt. I made it up to the dessert course but now came the moment of truth. I was nervous since I don’t consider myself a pastry chef by any means. But on the other hand, I didn’t think I’d win so there wasn’t a lot of pressure on me. I wanted to just have fun with it. So, we come to the moment when they pull the lid off the plate (to show who the winner is) and bam!! It was mine. I couldn’t believe it. I won. My first competition in eight years and I pull of a victory. Then the interviews began. I did interviews for newspapers and TV. I was so happy. I drove home that night, got in at 3am and basically fell into bed. I was up at 8am Tuesday and back to work. You’re only as good as your last meal and today was a new day and it was time to get back to work. Ppl came into the resto talking about the competition! That’s the good think about having a marketer as a best friend. He gets the word out to the right ppl. I, and more importantly, Le Bon Marché were on the radio in several papers and even got to do an interview with CTV. This is great. I don’t have any money to advertise so winning a competition is the next best thing. Free publicity!!! Hahaha.  Now truth be told, I didn’t win the competition yet. I only won the one round. I go back on the 4^th or 5^th of March for the semi finals. The finals if I win, will be held on the 6^th of March at the CFRA show in Toronto at the Direct Energy Centre. Now here’s how different we (in the hospitality industry) are. If I win the whole thing, the grand prize is a trip to Spain to work in a 3 Michelin Start Restaurant under the Chef. How’s that. You work your butt off and the prize is to go work. Ha ha ha. How do I feel about this? I @#$%&*ing love it!!!! To work in a 3 Michelin Resto for a week would be a dream come true.   Now for my L’heure Verte menu.  Due to popular demand, I will feature my winning dishes during this event so make your reservations now.  So back to reality. Tuesday night we got a massive snow storm.  We had a reservation of 10 and I was afraid they would cancel.  Surprisingly they didn’t. And thankfully as well, as they were the only 10 we did that night. But they were great business men to serve. At the end of their meal, one man said to me. “I travel all over the world with my company and this restaurant is right up there with the best. The food was fantastic”, he continued on.  Man, what a high I was on. Wed and Thursday weren’t the greatest. I think the snow scared everyone away. Friday was a good day and then Saturday was upon us. We had a function for the Shriners at the Shrine Club for 75 ppl and the resto was booked up like crazy as well. We had a jazz dinner band in called Twilight. Apparently they have a big following. We were a little short staffed between the restaurant and the outside catering and Kyla was a tad nervous.  I sent Kyla and Gord over to the Shrine and Sol and I carried out the battle at the resto. Jake also volunteered to help out at the Shrine Club.  He and I have worked many functions together with Sheridan Catering so I knew that with his guidance at the front of the house and Kyla’s cooking at the back, we’d be in good shape. I wasn’t worried at all. Sometimes you work well with ppl and sometimes you don’t. This night, Sol and I worked perfectly in tandem. We busted out 53 ppl, which for us is a great night. I had asked a few friends to help me out so I want to say a big Thank You to Jake, Michelle, Darren, Ruth, Caleb and Patty for helping out. I didn’t get home till 3 am and that’s the way it should be on a Saturday night. After everyone was gone, I sat at the bar, sipping a Diet Pepsi just soaking in the moment. I got home, had a hot shower, watched T.V. till 4am and crashed. Sunday I relaxed, played with the kids and went to a meeting with Jake. Tomorrow it starts all over again…. the cleaning….the orders…..

 With that, I hope this week is another good one. Thanx for reading and I’ll blog at you next week.

Cheers, Rusty Chemise.