Olympic Restaurant Equipment Cooking Demonstration Stage
at the Columbia Bank Gateway Center
The Festival is proud to share this sense of place with you through a fantastic Demonstration Stage line-up of chefs from around the Olympic Peninsula and beyond. Each chef will use fresh, local ingredients to prepare mouth-watering Olympic Coastal Cuisine.
Sponsored by:
Jefferson Healthcare
Olympic Restaurant Equipment, Inc.
Olympic Peninsula Visitors Bureau
Olympic Culinary Loop
CHEK
Chef’s Demonstration Schedule
To Be Announced: We’re working like beavers to line-up some wonderful celebrity chefs to give you the best tips, techniques, and tantalizing treats from the cuisine of the Olympic Peninsula and Pacific Northwest Region.
Saturday: October 11, 2014
- 11:30 a.m. —
- 12:30 p.m. —
- 1:30 p.m. —
- 2:30 p.m. —
- 4:00 p.m. —
- 5:00 p.m. —
Sunday: October 12, 2014
- 11:00 a.m. —
- 12:00 p.m. —
- 1:00 p.m. —
- 2:00 p.m. —
- 3:00 p.m. —
Meet Our Chefs
Chef Arran Stark
Cultivated Palette Catering, and Executive Chef for Jefferson Healthcare,Port Townsend
Emcee for the Food Demonstration Stagefferson Healthcare found the “cure” for hospital food with Chef Arran Stark
Jefferson Healthcare began changing how food is prepared and served at the hospital when CEO Mike Glenn hired local rock star Chef Arran Stark in 2011. Chef Stark and his mission to use local, sustainable and fresh food is one of the service improvements implemented at Jefferson Healthcare that delights both the patients and the staff.
Jefferson Healthcare has become one of the first, if not the only hospital in the State of Washington that incorporated this more organic approach to food services. Chef Stark buys local vegetables, fruits, meats and cheeses and transforms those ingredients into the cafeteria style food line up. And the lunch line starts early and can be long.
Chef Stark connects the concepts of healthy eating to a healthier person. By focusing on wholesome meal and food choices, this will produce results in healthier patients and staff. He is spreading his mission to the community with his future plans to work with kids. Chef Stark is in the initial phases of developing a program to link kids with fresh food choices. He wants to teach them how to combine tasty ingredients for meals and snacks for home or to take to school.
“I really want to take the food across the board. I want to take it to the patients. I want to take it to employees. I want to take it to guests of the hospital – good wholesome food that is prepared from the heart.”
A current example of how he is putting his mission to action is in August, he officially changed the hospital staple Jello (colored sugar water) to real organic juice gelatin which hasn’t been official labeled, but whether it is something like “jellorganicgoodforu”or “Realjuicello” either way patients will benefit. Even though this is a small item, it goes a long way with those who have food restrictions in their diet.
“Eventually, I want to get with doctors and formulate menus and even get to the point of prescribing good nutritious food. We’re a hospital. We should be building health. The biggest health builder is food.”
His culinary career began as an apprentice at Atlanta’s Le Petite Auberge under Chef Wolfgang Gropp which led to working with French Master Chef Bernard Goupy at the famed Le Clos at Chateau Elan. Chef Arran career journey took him from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to the Hotel Wheatleigh in the Berkshires and on to Atlanta as Executive Chef at Glen Arven Country Club, the 3rd oldest golf club in the U.S. Then in 2005 as Executive Chef of Andina it was awarded Oregonian’s Restaurant of the year. Arran and his wife, Micaela, moved to Port Townsend in 2006 where dreams of a sustainable farm to table business took root in the form of Cultivated Palette Catering and Brassica Restaurant. As emcee, Chef Arran will share his knowledge about the Olympic Peninsula farms, local crops, seafood and the culinary bounty of the Olympic Peninsula.
Chef Garrett Schack
Vista 18 Victoria, Canada
(Chef Schack’s appearance at the Crab Festival is sponsored by CHEK and Black Ball Ferry Lines)
Passion for supporting sustainable healthy local food has always been at the heart of Executive Chef, Garrett Schack’s culinary mantra. Born in Prince George, B.C. he originally moved to Victoria from Germany to attend the culinary arts program at Camosun College under the mentorship of Gilbert Noussitou. After he completed his training, he cooked his way through South East Asia and Australia. Garrett returned home in 2001. He took the helm as Executive Chef at the highest kitchen in Victoria in 2007 – Vista 18.
Jess Owen
Chef and Owner at Ocean Crest Resort in Moclips Washington
In the dining room Jess is known as a Certified Culinary Consultant, in the kitchen he is known as The Culinary Madman for his unique creations like “Chai Halibut” and “Roosevelt Elk and Berry Soup”. Jess’s philosophy is to keep dishes as simple as possible. He is inspired by the bounty of the Olympic Peninsula and the blank canvas that is the plate.
Jess is known for his gregarious sense of humor and abundant knowledge of food. His menus feature beautiful, simple food you want to eat again and again. One of his favorite things is to serve a new and very creative dish, such as “Chocolate Soup” or “White Chocolate Whipped Potatoes”, and see the skeptical look on a guests face change to a look of pure happiness with their first bite.
The Dining Room at Ocean Crest Resort was lost to a tragic fire in June, 2011. The Culinary Madman and the Curtright family look forward to their award winning restaurant re-opening in Spring 2014.
Chef Steve McNabb
Wine on the Waterfront and Olympic Coast Consulting, Port Angeles
Steve is a local chef that specializes in menu conception and recipe development for local businesses. Helping make connections with artisan producers & specialized purveyors, and showing people how to take those ingredients and create dishes that satisfy. He has recently become the owner of Wine on the Waterfront.
Xinh T. Dwelley
Xinh’s Clam and Oyster House
Chef Xinh started cooking as a teenager at a mess hall in her native Vietnam for an entire battalion of American soldiers. Dwelley married an American GI and immigrated to the states in 1970. Prior to taking a job with Taylor Shellfish, Dwelley, from the small Vietnamese village of An Hoa, did not even know what an oyster was. Dwelley started winning cooking competitions with her soul-settling oyster stew. In 1996, Xinh’s Clam and Oyster House in Shelton, Wash. was born. Xinh’s food is neither Vietnamese nor American, but rather cooking from the heart as she expresses the flavor memories of her homeland with the local shellfish. Xinh’s food is known to her many loyal fans, simply and uniquely, as “Xinh’s food”. Some call it “Xinhful”
http://www.forbes.com/forbes-life-magazine/2009/0626/places-we-love-lifestyle-travel.html
Chef Mona Stone and Jim Stone
Alaska Scallop Association’s mission is to be vigilant stewards of our Alaska Weathervane Scallop resources and the environment, provide economic stability to the vessels and crew and produce premier products. Part of this mission is to create public awareness of the superiority of the sweet, all natural Alaska Weathervane Scallop. The demonstration team consists of Alaska Scallop fishermen, their families and friends.
Michael and Candy McQuay Opened Kokopelli Grill in December of 2009. Both Husband and wife have extensive restaurant backgrounds. Michael is classically trained chef who grew up in the Northwest and after many years living in the south, Candy and Michael returned to the Northwest and opened the grill.
Chef Craig Alexander
Executive Chef, Red Lion Hotel, Port Angeles, WA
Chef Craig Alexander started his culinary career in the dish room at the Red Lion at the Quay in Vancouver, Washington. He quickly found his passion and ambition to becoming a chef, earning a culinary degree. Craig was able to continue to expand his work, becoming Executive Chef at the Red Lion in Vancouver at the age of 27.
Chef Dave Long
Oven Spoonful, Port Angeles, WA
Dave took an interest in food at an early age. Dave enrolled in South Seattle Community College’s Culinary Arts program, where he found his passion. Upon graduating, he cut his chops in some of Seattle’s finest restaurants and hotels, alongside several noted chefs. Then he traveled north to Bellingham where he worked as executive chef for Rhododendron Cafe, Chuckanut Bay Catering and Semiahmoo Golf & Country Club. The beauty of the Olympic Peninsula called Dave back to help design and open the Port Angeles Brewing Company. He went on to teach culinary arts for the Port Angeles School District at both the high school and college level. Chef and co-owner of Oven Spoonful since 2008, Dave combines all the skills and talents of his career in one. Oven Spoonful is a full-service catering business as well as a cafe/espresso shop in downtown Port Angeles
Chef Dave Senters
Bella Italia Restaurant, Port Angeles, WA
Bella Italia was born out of a desire to bring friends together around the table and create a restaurant that reminded people of warm, gregarious Italian hospitality. Accentuating the use of fresh local and organic ingredients was paramount from the beginning.
Chef Becky Selengut, Seattle, Washington
Becky Selengut is a 1999 Seattle Culinary Academy graduate where she was awarded the Outstanding Culinarian of the Year. Selengut’s culinary career began in restaurants, with stints at La Medusa, La Spiga and 3 years at the internationally acclaimed Herbfarm Restaurant working under her mentor, Chef Jerry Traunfeld. Since 2004, her career has moved beyond the traditional restaurant into everything but the restaurant, taking on such diverse jobs as cheffing on a yacht tour of the Inside Passage to teaching cooking to immigrants and refugees and finding them work in the food industry.
In 2004, she started her private chef and culinary education business, Cornucopia Cuisine, and in January 2006 she founded the educational website Seasonal Cornucopia . A regular instructor for PCC Natural Markets since ’04, Selengut is also an adjunct professor in the culinary/nutrition department at Bastyr University.
A prolific writer, Selengut co-authored The Washington Local and Seasonal Cookbook in 2008, and wrote Good Fish in 2011 with wine pairing contributions from her wife, Sommelier April Pogue. Good Fish was an IACP book award finalist, one of Seattle Magazine’s best cookbooks of 2011 and an NPR-notable read. In 2012, Selengut was given the Seafood Ambassador Award by the Monterey Bay Aquarium for her commitment to ocean conservation and sustainable seafood education. A former freelancer for Seattle Homes and Lifestyles Magazine, she currently writes a two time “Eddy” award-nominated humor column for Edible Seattle Magazine . Selengut also runs the blog Chef Reinvented and co-leads springtime foraging tours. Each year she donates cooking classes, demonstrations, dinners and cookbooks to raise money for local charities and non-profits.
In 2012 she is working with the Cascade Harvest Coalition, Legal Voice, and Equal Rights Washington, among others.In 2013, Selengut hopes to clone herself so she can find the time to do more of these fun things other people call ‘work’.
