Don Genova's Blog

Recipe for Success: Take 13 chefs, 13 Olympic athletes, past and present, add scrumptious ingredients and dress it all up in fancy lighting and music. Cook until done. Raise $100,000.

That’s what happened last night at the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre. The occasion was the latest edition of Gold Medal Plates, a series of cross-Canada cooking competitions designed to raise money for our very best Canadian Olympic athletes.

Each star chef was paired with a current or former athlete. The chefs were to come up with a dish that represented the character of the athlete (some did, some didn’t) and the public, who forked out $250 for each ticket, got to gobble down the different dishes and then vote to see which team would emerge triumphant and carry on to the Canadian finals this coming weekend in Whistler.

One of my companions for the evening was champion food stylist Nathan Fong . Nathan, who has worked with Tojo of Tojo’s on frequent occasions, couldn’t resist re-arranging Tojo’s flower display as his serving station. He also couldn’t help noticing that Premier Campbell, who said a few words to VIP guests before the main event began, was wearing a grey suit which was ill-suited (pardon the pun) to his grey hair. My other companion for the evening, the lovely and talented Ramona Montagnes, director of the UBC Writing Centre couldn’t help noticing that as the premier began to speak, a wine glass (not his) was immediately swept away from the podium before anyone could take a photo.

Of course, I only noticed the food, starting with Tojo’s Fish in the Forest, a succulent piece of smoked sablefish stuffed with burdock root (gobo) and wrapped in a bamboo leaf, brilliantly presented on a vivid, red maple leaf. For the next two hours I gobbled down as many dishes as I could, all in the interest of fair play as I was entitled to cast a vote as well.

My personal favourite, mostly because I loved all the components, was that of Fairmont Chateau Whistler’s Executive Chef Vincent Stufano, with his Smoked Black Cod on venison short rib, butter sautéed pine mushrooms served with Pearl Onions in Port and Pumpkin Gnocchi. Which is not to say I didn’t have other favourites that evening, but I could only cast one ballot.

The best looking team of the evening was undoubtedly Charmaine Crooks and Vikram Vij of Vij’s, Charmaine resplendent in a gold sari outfit. And the food was great, too. Vikram’s Cumin Crusted Lamb Loin with Porcini Cream Curry and Spicy Cashews earned the Bronze award last night. The Silver went to Rob Clark, of C Restaurant with his Queen Charlotte Island ‘Kagan Bay’ scallop, quince-glazed pork shoulder, hazelnuts and citrus paper. Gold went to that perennial Vancouver favourite, Rob Feenie of Lumiere with a dish of his I have tasted many times, Roasted Butternut Squash Ravioli with Truffle Beurre Blanc. An old dish, but absolutely delicious. Feenie goes on to the finals in Whistler.

Simplest presentation: Michael Stadtlander, organizing chef for the entire tournament, with his Cortes Island oysters served with a tart mignonette, and Quadra Island mussels with coconut milk and a hint of lemon grass.

Best story: Rod Butters of Fresco, explaining how his farmer was out digging in the snow around Kelowna this week to find the ‘watermelon radishes’ garnishing his plate of tomato delights preserved from the Stony Paradise harvest this fall.

Most aromatic: David Hawksworth of West, who used pine mushrooms, truffle and horseradish to fine advantage in his beef shortrib ravioli, and Pino Posteraro of Cioppino’s, who blasted our sinus cavities with shavings of fresh white Alba truffles in his decadent risotto ‘Alba-style’ with foie gras foam.

Pork Fat Rules: James Walt of Araxi in Whistler scored high on my list as well with his braised pork belly accompanied by a weathervane scallop ravioli and crisp apple slaw.

Nathan, Ramona and I darted out before the winners were announced because we had to go and watch the latest episode of ‘The Bachelor’. But we watched it from where part of this episode happened….a bed in the luxurious Shaughnessy Suite at the Hotel Vancouver. Fairmont Hotels had offered three of their prime properties as ‘fantasy date locations’ to the show…so as we watched last night at the Fairmont-sponsored event, we saw the dates unfold in Whistler, Vancouver and San Francisco.

It was a little eerie/strange/gross to realize the people who were up there on the network TV screen had probably consummated their date on the bed on which we were lying…but hey, we still had all of our clothes on. If you want to relive the fantasy date, you can check out a ‘Bachelor Package’ at the Fairmont website. And to check out all the pictures from the evening, just click here.

Hi everyone…and special thanks to those of you who posted entries to the contest to win a copy of Sugar, by Anna Olson. I made Anna’s Cranberry Gratin as part of my Thanksgiving feast, and it was a big hit, with a bonus of being extremely easy to make. The recipe is on my website if you want to check it out.

I’ll announce the winners of the contest on Wednesday and be in touch with them so I can mail out the books. In the meantime, a couple of contestants asked if everyone would be so kind as to post the actual recipes they were talking about. If you’d like to contribute, just post your recipe here.

If you’re short of reading material, check out this feature my alumni e-newsletter is running this month. It’s a pretty good retrospective of my career in journalism over the past 20 years.

Yikes! I can’t begin to tell you all the reasons why this weblog has been dormant for so many months, but rest assured I will do my best to keep it active again.

I think fall is my favourite season, there are so many great fruits and vegetables being harvested, the light is fantastic and the colours amazing. For Thanksgiving I’m doing something a little different for dessert. It’s going to be a cranberry clafouti made from Anna Olson’s cookbook called Sugar. Anna is the charming host of the TV show called Sugar on Food Network Canada and I had a chance to meet her while she swung through Vancouver on her publicity tour. You’ll find the recipe as of Wednesday, Oct. 6th on my website under Food For Thought-Current Show.

I also have two copies of Sugar to send out to you, if you are willing to tell me about your favourite dessert of all time. Just go to the bottom of this page and post a comment. I’ll draw two names from the entries. The deadline is Monday, Oct. 11th. Good luck, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thanks to all of you who entered the Best of BC contest. All of the comments below are worthy nominations, and I encourage you to read the comments, seek out these products and support your fellow British Columbians who make them.

A couple of weeks ago the front page of the Style section of the Globe and Mail featured a large photo of Canadian chefs David Hawksworth of West Restaurant in Vancouver, and Susur Lee, of Susur’s, in Toronto. Standing back to back, each with a kitchen utensil in hand, they looked as if they were ready to slice and dice each other into submission. The headline read, ‘Food Fight: East meets West when two top chefs take off the gloves.” Your reporter was Alexandra Gill, and the rest of the headline promised a report gathered as ‘they battle it out’.

This was NOT a battle, and the promised article turned out to be mostly a comparison of Vancouver and Toronto restaurants, with only passing mentions of the menu the two chefs delivered to their fans. I wish I could have been witness to the denouement, but while the chefs were ‘duking’ it out, I was teaching my freelance travel writing course at UBC.

The day before the dinner, though, I was granted access to the kitchens at West as Hawksworth and Lee prepped for the 6-course plus amuse plus dessert meal. It turns out this meeting was a year in the making. Hawksworth had heard good things about Lee, and thought it would be fun to have him come out. The two had never met before, and Hawksworth’s wife Annabel, who also does publicity for West, admitted she was a little nervous about how the two might hit it off. Her fears were dispelled, however, from moment one, especially when the two toured Chinatown and were like the proverbial ‘kids in the candy store’.

The two have quite different personalities. In his kitchens, Hawksworth is quiet, calm and assured, the epitome of professionalism. Lee is the opposite. Irreverent, cursing and a joke-cracker, he went about his work with the air of someone who knows how to have a good time. Both the prep kitchen and the main service kitchen at West were jammed with sous-chefs dancing their way through preparations for dinner that night, as well as the extravaganza to come the following night.

I asked each of them about chefs in each other’s kitchens, but it didn’t seem to faze them. Hawksworth says you want to be careful about whom you invite, but Susur’s reputation left no worries about that, and Susur says while it’s great to be invited, working in a strange kitchen is always an issue for a chef to work around, although bringing his top sous-chef with him helped avoid any problems. While I was there he was quickly mixing together what seemed like a large amount of wasabi for a mousse, which he then piped into tiny, perfect mountains on a tray to set for use the next day. Meanwhile, Hawksworth watched a couple of his chefs struggle with one of his dishes, a squab paired with foie gras, wrapped in a leaf of savoy cabbage. They were figuring out how to properly wrap the meat in the cabbage, which would then be wrapped in plastic and steamed in a contraption that would cook everything at the same rate. Apparently this dish was the hit of the evening. Hawksworth told me it was one he had come up with years ago…one that he keeps in his head, along with everything else he’s learned about cooking over the years.

My big regret was not being able to attend the dinner to see how it all worked out. But for a few pics of the prep for ‘East meets West’, click here. To taste the food of David Hawksworth, I guess you’ll have to get to West, and for Susur, add the cost of a plane ticket to Toronto. Susur, 601 King St. West 416-603-2205.

If any of you out there was at the dinner, I’d love to read your comments, which you can post at the bottom of this page.

This is what live radio is all about. Host Rick Cluff, producer Karen Burgess and technician Bert Cervo invaded the East Vancouver home of Bob and Charles at about 4:30am last Friday morning. The couple were winners of a contest is which the ‘prize’ was having the CBC Early Edition crew broadcast live from their home, 5:30am to 8:30am.

I was part of the prize. My job was to cook breakfast for Bob and Charles with whatever I could find in their cupboards, freezer and fridge. Bob and Charles claimed they didn’t cheat by shopping in advance, but they didn’t make my job very hard as they were very well stocked.

For starters I prepared a zippy fruit salad featuring banana, kiwi fruit, mango, canned pineapple chunks and frozen blackberries I found in the freezer. I did bring a secret weapon with me, a small bottle of Canadian ice wine. I made a dressing with some pineapple juice from the can, the ice wine and another surprise, a tablespoon or so of some very spicy, black pepper balsamic vinegar I found on the kitchen counter. For colour and extra crunch, I sprinkled some fresh pomegranate seeds on top of the salad.

As part of the main course, I took some strips of bacon and lined them up, slightly overlapping each other, then covered them with a healthy dose of ground black pepper, roasting the slices in the oven. In the heat of the broadcast, I forgot to drizzle some maple syrup over top of the bacon, but it was still delicious.

The crowning glory was an egg and cheese frittata. I sautéed some onion and orange, yellow and red bell peppers in olive oil in a cast iron frying pan. Over top of that mixture I poured 4 beaten eggs which had been augmented by some Dijon mustard, mayonnaise, salt and pepper and some grated Jarlsberg cheese. Once the bottom of the frittata had set, I added some slices of fresh tomato on top, along with some intensely-flavoured sun-dried cherry tomatoes Bob and Charles had harvested from their garden last summer and packed into oil. Oh yeah, and a few slices of Camembert cheese for good measure. Then the whole pan was flung into the oven and I broiled the top to puff up the eggs and melt the cheese until the top was golden brown. Yum!

Thanks to Bob and Charles for letting me mess up their kitchen, and take part in a very fun live radio show. For a few photos click here.