The Charleston Daily Mail - by Monica Orosz
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Cast Iron Cook-Off Brings out best in West Virginia chefs, ingredients
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- If I ever need a new day job, I've got a future as a carny worker.
For that matter, so does Jim Pitrolo, the governor's legislative director.
After some trial and error with a pink and purple cotton candy maker, Jim and I figured out how to spin up some sugar Saturday.
It was one of our chores as guest chefs (read: amateurs) on the Whitewater Grille team for the 4th Annual Cast-Iron Cookoff at the Charleston Marriott.
The task of our team was to help complete the four-course meal conceived by our leaders (read: real chefs), Loren Schrader and Chris Kirksey, that was to highlight Appalachian products.
We had an hour at the stoves, and one component of each course had to be cooked in cast iron.
We competed against the likes of Berry Hills Country Club, The Greenbrier Sporting Club, Sutton's Cafe Cimino, The Bridge Road Bistro, Bridgeport's Provence Market and other West Virginia restaurants, along with apprentice chefs.
While the purpose of the cookoff is to promote West Virginia products, regional cuisine and the efforts of the Collaborative for the 21st Century Appalachia to get local foods to local chefs and consumers, there also were some bragging rights on the line.
We may have been amateurs, but we sure didn't want to shame our chefs in front of the judges: Lee Anne Wong of Bravo TV's "Top Chef;" Farmer Lee Jones of Ohio's Chef's Garden; Rod Stoner, the retired vice president of food and beverage for The Greenbrier; Jeremy Critchfield, executive chef of Pennsylvania's Nemacolin Woodlands Resort; and West Virginia Agriculture Commissioner Gus Douglass.
Schrader, the executive chef of the Marriott, which runs the Whitewater Grille, and Kirksey, his sous chef, had a tough task this weekend.
Because the Marriott hosted the event, they were in charge of theopening reception Friday. They led our team Saturday morning and then had to hightail it into the kitchen to oversee preparations for a five-course gala dinner Saturday night, a feast that would be shared by the day's participants (read: a bunch of foodies who would scrutinize every bite).
Team Whitewater was a spirited bunch that included Dee Bird, Ashlee Burgess and Patty Pitrolo of the Charleston Convention and Visitors Bureau; Patty's husband, Jim; George Manahan of the Manahan Group, which does marketing for the bureau; Mike Agnello of WCHS Radio; Stephen Owens, an 18-year-old Buffalo High student who studies culinary arts at the Putnam Career and Technical Center, and me.
Every team had an hour to meet before heading to the cooking area, time during which the chefs explained their menu plan and assigned jobs. Two jobs had nothing to do with picking up a knife or spoon: Agnello stepped up as team cheerleader and Manahan as our official team timer.
Other assignments included familiar jobs like peeling, slicing, dicing and unfamiliar jobs like making pea juice froth, spinning cotton candy and spherifying cranberry juice.
That last one is a process by which the juice is combined with alginate and then dropped with a syringe into a water and calcium salt solution that makes the juice form these little blobs.
We created a bit of buzz around the room when Kirksey donned a protective mask and gloves and, using liquid nitrogen, created an almost instant sorbet.
Burgess took it for the team, suffering a cut while peeling and coring apples that actually required a Band-Aid. Owens and I got hand cramps peeling tiny Jerusalem artichokes. Jim Pitrolo diced perfect cubes of squash. Patty Pitrolo juiced piles of peas and then frothed them, all for a few tiny spoonfuls used as garnish. Bird cooked the beets to just the right doneness. Agnello kept our spirits high.
And just in the nick of time, Schrader and Kirksey plated up four servings of each course: Butternut Squash and Hazelnut Soup with Wild Game Birds. Corn and Fava Bean Succotash with Spring Peas. Bison, Beets, Wild Cranberries, Persimmon and Sassafras. Deconstructed Apple Crumble.
How could we not win?
Well, phooey, we didn't. Despite compliments of the judges and scores (or a couple) of admiring fans, we didn't win a darn thing.
I grudgingly, I mean happily, offer the list of winners below:
