The Culinary Works

How many of you watch Iron Chef? Remember the old original show from Asia, where the secret ingredient was always the weirdest thing you had ever seen? Probably most of you have at least seen it. Watching the chef’s create such amazing dishes apparently from newly known ingredients in just one hour, what could be more exciting? How about seeing it in person?

Recently, the Professional Culinary Institute (PCI) advertised an event structured very similar to an Iron Chef competition except for one uber critical detail. As an attendee, you were also served the very dishes the judges tasted. As a bonus, you were also allotted one vote per course to determine the “People’s Choice Award”. As you can imagine, I immediately began asking questions and made sure we were slated to attend.

I must admit that a contributing factor to my excitement was that one of the competing chef’s, Jeremy MacVeigh is a friend of mine. I have worked with Jeremy over the years both teaching and catering. You know how it is with sports, it’s always more fun if you know someone on the team. To me, this was the same thing. It just made it that much more exciting.

Let me explain how the event was structured. You may not realize that on Iron Chef the chefs, along with their team of sous chef’s, have one hour to prepare the food, which is in total only four plates of each course. For this event the chefs had to feed the entire crowd plus the four judges, meaning they had to prepare 64 plates of each course. The chef’s were given 4 hours to prepare 4 courses for the diners plus the judges. Each chef was allowed 5 student assistants. The secret ingredient was…..drum roll……chocolate!! GOSH the world loves me!!!

We were fortunate enough to have been granted not only early access to the school, which is fabulous by the way, more on that later, but direct access to the chef’s kitchens in the hours before the event. This gave us time to ask questions, spy on their menu and plating diagrams. It also gave us a chance to ask about strategies and most of all, see the teams in action.

Chef Jeremy has over 20 years of industry experience, having worked in fine restaurants in and around Boston as well as in the Sacramento area. He is not only a highly respected culinary instructor but also author of the beautifully well-done cooking text, International Cuisine.

Having been challenged by the young upstart MacVeigh, Chef Udo Prambs is a Certified Master Chef with more than 20 years culinary experience. His resume is most impressive and clearly his dedication and skill have earned him many opportunities all over Europe and the US, including catering an event at Windsor Castle!

The stage is set. Each possessing a magnitude of experience and skill from varied backgrounds, the chefs set out to give us chocolate, as we have never seen it before.

First, we spent some time in Chef Jeremy’s kitchen. I felt a little like that annoying kitchen interviewer guy on Iron Chef butting in with the silly questions, but frankly, I couldn’t help myself. When we entered the kitchen, two student chefs were cleaning Foie Gras, one was making Farina Cakes, another was cutting shapes from Brioche, one was peeling Quince and another was preparing to make Ravioli. The mood was focused but relaxed. Everyone, including the chef, seemed to be enjoying himself or herself and looking forward to the event. This was at around 2pm.

Chef Udo’s kitchen, which I didn’t feel as free to harass because I havn’t know him for years was a bit quieter and less jovial with a sense of seriousness in the air. One of the team members was skillfully making chocolate tortellini, another was creating sugar garnish and Chef Udo was poised at the burners.

Assembling a ravioli in Chef Jeremy's kitchen