Chefs at the Pomeroy Inn & Suites took second place in a culinary competition in Red Deer Aug. 20.
Executive chef Dawn Hand and chef Christina Olson received that honour on behalf of the hotel during the second annual formal garden party fundraiser for Habitat For Humanity's Red Deer chapter.
Chefs from five hotels took part. A Red Deer chef took first place.
“(They) won themselves a really great knife as a souvenir,” Pomeroy general manager Stephen Dodwell says.
Dodwell is proud not only of Hand and Olson but also everyone in the Pomeroy who helped engineer that success.
“Donna and Christine were the front two and then just about everybody in the kitchen had some play on it; even a couple of the sort of dishwasher/prep people got involved too,” he says.
“So really it was the entire kitchen and those were the two who got to go and prepare the event on the day,” he adds. “It's a hard old slog in the kitchen and it's just nice for them to get some recognition.”
Dodwell is also impressed with the initiative demonstrated.
“I didn't ask them to do it. Nobody pushed them to do it; it was Dawn and the guys in the kitchen got together and said they wanted to do it,” he says. “That makes it even sweeter because it comes from their own heart; their own motivation, if you like.”
Executive chef Dawn Hand is pleased with how the hotel did in the competition.
“I was pretty happy,” she says, noting it's the first time the Pomeroy in Olds has entered such a competition. “I was pretty happy we represented our food. I thought that was great.”
She says the competition was “moderate.”
“I think it's pretty easy. I'm pretty experienced at this kind of stuff,” she says, noting she's been in the restaurant business for about 30 years and has entered competitions for about 20 years.
Hand says in total, about four staff members helped out in one way or another.
When asked if she would do it again, Hand says, “yeah, I definitely would. I'm just proud of our food, so I like to show it off.”
Two special guests were on hand for the evening: female professional hockey player Hayley Wickenheiser and former Calgary Flames trainer Jim “Bearcat” Murray.
“Hayley shared a moving speech about her recent trip to the Summer Olympic Games in Rio, her time as an Olympian herself and expressed what Habitat means to her,” a news release says.
“Jim ‘Bearcat' Murray hosted the rousing live auction for an original piece from artist Brad Holt that was donated for the evening.”
Dodwell says such competitions serve as kind of extended training.
“There aren't that many around,” he says. “I think if the right one came along, we'd do it, because we try to involve the chefs and we get the youngsters trying to come up.”
Dodwell says Hand tries to spur development of her staff via a monthly competition called the black box.
“Basically, they have to come up with a dish. They cook it, present it to the rest of the guys and the one that wins, it goes on the menu as a special for that month,” Dodwell says.
“She's always trying to develop them in some way. And that's why competitions are good. They take an awful lot of effort and time, but they enable you to do things that perhaps you would not normally do because of the restrictions on the menu.
“We always try to do it, but you've always got to balance that with the real world of doing your job as well,” he adds.
Following is the menu for the competition:
Brioche filled with foie gras and thyme-infused duck confit
Smoked albacore tuna tartar with avocado in a sesame cone
Semi-sweet, white and milk chocolate truffle crusted with almonds and toffee, drizzled with a fresh raspberry amaretto coulis
Herb & chervil crusted beef tenderloin and red onion confit in a potato basket laced with crčme fraiche
"I didn't ask them to do it. Nobody pushed them to do it, it was Dawn and the guys in the kitchen got together and said they wanted to do it," he says. That makes it even sweeter because it comes from their own heart; their own motivation, if you like."STEPHEN DODWELLGENERAL MANAGERPOMEROY INN & SUITES
