QUICK BITES
Quick competition
By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor
For most of us, it's sufficient challenge to try to decide what to fix for dinner. But last month six young Island chefs took on a more daunting task: to use the contents of a mystery market basket, plus kitchen staples, to design and then prepare a three-course menu for four people, all within three hours.
The event March 6 was organized by the Hawaii Pacific Regional Chaine des Rotisseurs; it's called the Jeune Commis Competition and the winner will go on to a similar national competition in Pittsburgh May 18.
That was Ryan R. Loo, an assistant cook at Hoku's at the Kahala Mandarin Oriental Hotel, with a menu that included an "Opakapaka Variation" — ceviche and a poached roulade of shrimp/scallop mousse with Sauce Nantua sauteed with citrus relish; a main course of balsamic-glazed pork loin, gingered Okinawan mash, tournedos of yellow squash, bok choy, haricot verts in Port wine jus; and a "banana sampler" dessert, including bread pudding with brandy anglaise, banana-chocolate chip ice cream, banana-strawberry mousse with berries and banana-cinnamon lumpia. Loo had half an hour to design the menu and two and a half hours to create the food
Other competitors included Andrew Patnode of Casanova Restaurant on Maui; Darren Demaya of Alan Wong's Restaurant on O'ahu; Ricky Kusuda, also of Hoku's; Ralf Bobusch of Hilton Waikoloa; and Allen Lagpacan Tadena of Roy's Nicolina on Maui.
Slow down, foodies
A new chapter of the international Slow Food organization is forming in Hawai'i with an organizational meeting from 6-8 p.m. Thursday at Fujioka's Wine Merchants in Kapahulu. Slow Food, as its name indicates, was formed to counter the increasing rapidity with which foods are created and consumed, and the swiftness with which older, healthier and more sustainable foodways are disappearing. The emphasis, according to organizer Nancy Piianaia, is on taste education, the protection of biological diversity, establishing closer relationships between farmers/food producers, purveyors and consumers and preserving endangered traditional and regional food sources. The movement has more than 70,000 members and 600 convivia (as their units are called) around the world, with 6,000 members and 70 convivia in the United States.
Attendance at the first meeting, to feature a tasting of artisnal cheese, is limited to 40 people; cost is $10 for members, $12 for nonmembers. Reservations: Fujioka's Wine Merchants, 739-9463.
Reflections on 9/11
Hawai'i had a considerable presence in a much-belated Winter issue of the Beard House magazine, publication of the James Beard Foundation. The magazine was originally set to go to press right after 9/11, but editor Peggy Grodinsky made the decision to scrap the stories they had and write more relevant material.
This issue, "Reflections on the Restaurant Industry After 9.11" includes a story about how Beard House staff and volunteers fed rescue workers in the days after the catastrophe. Among those who did so were chef James Cassidy and sous chef Royden Ellamar of the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai and James Babian of The Orchid at Mauna Lani, who had given a Beard House dinner Sept. 10. The magazine includes a recipe from the late Windows pastry chef Heather Ho of Honolulu who died in the attacks.
A number of Island chefs are included in the SceneEating photo pages at the back, including Scott Lutey of the Sheraton Kauai and Bryan Ashlock of Sheraton Maui, as well as Cassidy and Babian.
Send items of culinary interest to Food Editor, The Honolulu Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu HI 96802. Fax: 525-8055. E-mail: taste@honoluluadvertiser.com.
