JANUARY 27, 2011 ISSUE
If You Can’t Stand the Heat, Get Out of the Kitchen
Fire on the Rock Preliminary Competitions Begin February 1 and 2
Joshua Grogan from Crave in Boone
James Welch from the Green Park Inn in Blowing Rock
Tom Jankovitch from Painted Fish Catering“
I wanted to bring ‘Iron Chef’ off the television and into the dining room.
” —Jimmy Crippen, founder of Fire on the Rock and owner of Crippen’s Country Inn & Restaurant
Skipper Clyburn from Glidewell’s in Blowing RockBe sure to check High Country Press every week for a preview of each preliminary round as the Fire on the Rock Chef Challenge continues through February and March.
Here’s something to bring the heat to High Country’s winter months: 18 of the area’s best chefs, battling head-to-head (or ingredient-to-ingredient) for culinary recognition and a $2,500 grand prize.
Back for its sixth year, the Fire on the Rock Chef Challenge has become a local spinoff to the Food Network show “Iron Chef”—something founder Jimmy Crippen calls “competition dining.”
“I wanted to bring ‘Iron Chef’ off the television and into the dining room,” Crippen said. “Instead of watching judges eat the food and listening to their opinions, let’s all eat food ourselves and give our own opinions. It becomes an entirely interactive competition judged by the diners.”
Crippen’s Country Inn & Restaurant, located at 239 Sunset Drive in Blowing Rock, will host the 10 preliminary elimination rounds, and then the quarterfinals, each Tuesday and Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. in February and March.
“The whole idea of this event is to really increase the awareness of the great chefs that are in our area and push those chefs to better themselves,” Crippen said. “It also enlightens a lot of diners to visit restaurants that they may not have patronized in the past.”
The competing chefs are not allowed to cook any of their restaurant’s signature dishes—instead, three courses will have to incorporate a secret ingredient, revealed on the day of each competition. This year, Crippen might even up the competition factor by bringing in more than one “secret.”
“That could be one of the wrenches I throw,” Crippen said. “It could be one ingredient; it could be three. It could be a style of cooking, or it could be an ethnicity.”
Once the chefs create their culinary masterpieces, diners will judge each dish on their judging forms as they eat. At the end of the evening, officials will collect diners’ judging forms for tally, each chef’s dishes will be revealed and the highest scorers will be announced.
“Don’t think that just because one particular restaurant might have more supporters present that the other won’t win,” Crippen said. “Although some people try to guess based on what dishes they think belong to their favorite chef, they can be wrong since the chef cannot cook anything from their menu. It’s truly in people’s best interest to rank the dishes based on the merit of the food.”
The first preliminary round will take place Tuesday, February 1, featuring James Welch of Blowing Rock’s Green Park Inn versus Joshua Grogan of Boone’s Crave.
Welch is on the first bracket because he did not battle last season—but don’t underestimate his talent, as this chef of the newly remodeled Green Park Inn has won Fire on the Rock before. Grogan is a newcomer to the challenge, but Crippen said this owner of Crave is “young and hungry to solidify his spot on the map of great restaurants in the state.”
On Wednesday, February 2, Skipper Clyburn of Blowing Rock’s Glidewells will face Tom Jankovitch of Painted Fish Catering.
“Clyburn and Jankovitch both cut their teeth in the 80s and 90s and have a lot of tricks up their sleeves,” Crippen said. “Clyburn is no stranger to the great chefs and has worked with many.”
After being impressed with Jankovitch’s culinary skills, Crippen asked this former chef of the Grandfather Golf & Country Club to compete “just to raise the ante for everyone else.”
“In my personal opinion, I feel that for the diners, these heats will be two of the toughest battles of the season,” Crippen said.
Fire on the Rock kicked off this week on January 26, with the Best of the West Champion’s Dinner, where last year’s Fire on the Rock winner Sam Beasley of the Gamekeeper Restaurant in Blowing Rock cooked with the 2010 WNC Chef Challenge Champion, Asheville’s Rick Boyer of the Inn at Biltmore.
The Champion’s Dinner also featured secret ingredients, like skate wing from Seatrade International in New Bedford, Mass.; quail from Southern Foods and Manchester Farms; and Callebaut bittersweet chocolate, also from Southern Foods.
Crippen said the Champion’s Dinner sold out three weeks ahead of time—and seats are now going fast for the preliminary rounds, so the public is urged to make reservations for upcoming competition days.
For more information or reservations, call Crippen’s Country Inn at 828-295-3487 or click to www.fireontherock.com.
Preliminary Elimination Series Rules
• Tournament will be a single elimination bracket series
• Chefs must be a team of three dressed in kitchen uniform
• One flex cook is allowed (as long as they do not compete on another team)
• The secret ingredient(s) will be revealed on the day of each competition
• Each chef must create three dishes incorporating the secret ingredient
• Chef teams may not cook dishes from their own restaurant menus
• Teams may use only the ingredients provided
• Each team may bring a small “bag of tricks” amounting to no more than $100 worth of ingredients
• Each team must bring its own tools, but house equipment is available for both teams to work with
More Than Just a Competition
Fire on the Rock is not only evenings full of delightful cuisine—it also serves a large part of the High Country community. The Hunger and Health Coalition has again been chosen to receive all of the leftover prepared food, raw produce and dairy after the final competition, meaning that hundreds of hungry folks will receive fresh produce and meals they might never have had.
Last year, Fire on the Rock donated 324 pounds of prepared food and 834 pounds of raw produce and dairy products to the Hunger and Health Coalition. Each prepared meal weighs about one pound and each person gets about one pound of produce that week.
If you enjoyed Fire on the Rock last year, you helped 1,158 hungry people receive meals and produce.
For more information on the Hunger and Health Coalition, call 828-262-1628 or click to www.hungerandhealthcoalition.com.
Participating Restaurants
Green Park Inn
Crave
Glidewells
Painted Fish Catering
Rowland’s
Meadowbrook
Hearthstone Tavern
Char
Jackalope’s View
Bistro Roca
Sorrento’s
Canyons
Table at Crestwood
Manor House
Paolucci’s
Josh’s on Union Square
Vidalia
Gamekeeper
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