Whole Foods chefs edge Nosh

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Aug 6, 2008 | by TERESA j. FARNEY

Two teams ready to do

culinary battle showed up at Nosh last Saturday afternoon with their knife kits, five preselected ingredients, and many boxes of assorted one-bite desserts. The occasion was a competition between chefs from Nosh and

Whole Foods Market.

Chefs from Whole Foods Market included Jason Miller, executive chef in the prepared-foods department; Mike Davitt, assistant team leader in the meat department; and Chris Miller, manager of the seafood department. Nosh chefs were James Davis, executive chef at The Blue Star, and Justin Trudeau, chef at Nosh.

The teams were given a number of tasks. They first

had to prepare a drink, a tapas-size entree and a dessert, all served to the audience as a warm-up.

The Nosh team made a

lemon-flavored strawberry

cocktail. Their entree was a

pork loin slice draped over a scoop of sticky rice on a square of nori, drizzled with a spicy chili sauce and topped with a ball of wasabi. The dessert had a fresh peach theme.

The Whole Foods Market

served the audience a lime vodka drink topped with champagne; a smoked strip of salmon, sided with a beautiful whole chanterelle and topped with red tomato compote and green herb sauce. Their desserts were the showstopper: A cream puff filled

with cherries and whipping cream, a lemon tart and the best chocolate flourless cake

I've ever tasted.

Next came the cook-off and

revealing of the five ingredients chosen by contest organizers that the chefs were required to use along with the five ingredients they had brought. From these 10 ingredients, they were to create another drink and tapassize entree.

Joseph Coleman, who owns The Blue Star, Nosh and La'au's Taco Shop, did the honors. Coleman, who has

a wicked sense of humor, came up with wacky names

for the mystery foods: Rocky Mountain Dirt Oysters (red

beets with tops), Chartreuse

Tumors (avocados), Dried

Creel (quinoa) and Dolphin's Gallbladder (yellow banana peppers). A wedge of semihard cheese rounded out the

ingredients.

The ingredients Davis and Trudeau took with them

were bacon, duck demi-glace, shallots, crystallized ginger and wonton wrappers.

The Whole Foods Market

chefs took along dried aged steak, Vidalia onions, lemons, herbs and Patagonian toothfish (Chilean sea bass).

These dishes were plated

and served to the judges: Warren Epstein, GO! editor for The Gazette, and Jay Gust, executive chef at Ritz Grill. Five people from the audience tasted the dishes

and contributed scores.

The Nosh team came up

with the best-tasting cheeseand-pepper-filled pasta envelopes. "I'm stealing this recipe," Gust said.

Whole Foods won praises

for the quinoa dish made

tasty with butter and basil.

"The vote was four to three," said Coleman. "Whole Foods won the 30-minute challenge."

This challenge was born when a Whole Foods manager bragged to Coleman that his chefs were better

than Nosh's. That Whole Foods chefs can compete

with some of the best chefs in town should come as a surprise only to those who haven't strolled by the prepared-food aisle at the supermarket.

--

Reach Farney at 636-0271 or teresa.farney@gazette.com. She

appears Tuesdays on KOAA's

Comcast Channel 9 at 4 p.m.