Last Chef Standing…
We had a great idea for a new event for the Food & Wine Festival about 4 years ago that we just couldn’t pull off at the time. Well, thanks to the passion of the people in this town, we did manage to do it this year and here is how it happened.
At the end of November, I ran into Kellee Bartley at the Green Market at Bayview Park (happening every other Thursday), and she said she had an idea for a fundraising event for the Food & Wine Festival next year. As the Fundraising & Event Coordinator for the Visiting Nurse Association & Hospice of the Florida Keys, she wanted to do a cooking challenge based on the popular food network show “Chopped”. I told her I already had that idea and said “why not this year”?
We both agreed, and then…..
Logistically, creating organizing and executing a new event in a few short weeks is a mountain to climb. Somehow, with a lot of hard work, we did it. The concept was a cooking challenge with two local chefs and three judges each Saturday in January, with the final challenge happening during the Key West Food & Wine Festival.
Bill & Eden Brown are opening a new cookware store called Isle Cook Key West and it is going to have a demo kitchen in it for cooking lessons. We couldn’t think of a better location and began putting our plans in motion. This is where we hit our first major obstacle. With construction delays and the city’s licensing process, we quickly realized they would not be open in time for the competitions. We quickly began looking for other options and thanks to the generosity of our community, lined up Grand Vin Wine Bar and Bistro Sole to host the first four and the Curry Mansion Inn for the Finale.
The next challenge was finding the chefs who would want to compete and the judges who would be willing to critique and entertain the audience. We managed to fill the first two weeks pretty quickly, and as the event starting rolling, the others fell into place.
Then there were the logistics: writing talking points, rules for the competition, finding pictures for graphics, getting bios from all involved, raffle prizes, tables, chairs, microphones, pantry items, gas burners, cooking equipment, wine and food for the guests and more….
Promoting the event in such a short time involved press release, calendar of event listings, newspaper ads, radio ads and of course, getting on Pirate radio every week at 9 AM, which is way too early for my schedule. In between her two jobs, Kellee would also go on Island 107.1 on Friday evenings.
Somehow, it has all come together and we have created a new, fun event for Key West. We hope to make it an annual competition.
Here are the people that helped make it happen:
The judges
Stephanie Southgate, Andrew Forrowr, Liz Weinstock, Kimberley Denny, Donna Laurie Daniels
Candace Estep, Martha Robinson, Dan McConnell, Stephanie Goldberg Glazer, May Lou Hoover, Diana Sutton, John Correa
The Chefs
Martin Liz – Key West Personal Chef
Brendan Orr – Strip House
Joey Bove – Florida Keys Medical Center
Andrew Nguyen – 430 Duval
Mike Zielinski – Mr Z’s
Mike Mills – Big Johns
Tony Lazarus – Key West Spice Company
Clive Thompson – Key West Harbour Yacht Club
The Emcee
Kim Works – Pirate Radio
The Time keeper
Eden Brown – Isle Cook Key West
The Raffle Items
Isle Cook Key West
The locations
Grand Vin Wine Bar
Bistro Sole
Curry Mansion Inn
The Volunteers
Marisol Dye
Victoria Dye
Sue Caterino
Harlee Fisher
Roger Charriere
Michael Jensen
Jennifer Lloyd
Susan Fike
Eden & Bill Brown
Ellie McConnell
Mikey Wyganowski
and the list goes on at count over 30 people to make this happen.
Now the mystery ingredients:
Liverwurst, pickled beets, apples and pork rinds
Rose fish, powdered cocoa, barbeque potato chips and canned Asian mini corn
Spam, Funyons, canned pineapple and fresh ginger root.
By the time you see this it will be over, but remember us, we will be doing it again!
As you can see, a first time event supported by many people takes a lot of work and it is well worth it in the end.
This is what we do in Key West! We raise money for organizations that do something for people that matter – your friends and family.