I recently attended Taste Canada Cooks the Books competition at Mildred's Temple Kitchen, where seven Canadian culinary schools compete for the title of Canada's Best New Student Chefs.
Students from Assiniboine Community College (Brandon, Manitoba), Centennial College (Toronto, Ontario), Conestoga College (Kitchener, Ontario), Fanshawe College (London, Ontario), Liaison College of Culinary Arts (Kitchener, Ontario), Liaison College of Culinary Arts (Toronto, Ontario) and Thistletown Collegiate High School (Toronto, Ontario) were tasked with creating a dish for a team of judges. The competitors were judged on kitchen performance, sensory delivery and technical recipe writing skills by Annabelle Waugh (Food Director at Canadian Living Magazine), Christine Tizzard (author of "Honest To Goodness"), Dennis Prescott (chef and author of "Eat Delicious") and Jennifer Emilson ("The Lemon Apron" blog).
I was incredibly impressed watching these young chefs create their dishes, knowing that they are the future of culinary. I couldn't imagine participating in such an intense competition like Cooks the Books at my age let alone being a teenager, but all of them had incredible skills.
The winner of Cooks the Books was announced at the Taste Canada Gala at the Royal York Hotel. Jessi Coulter and Kaitlin McCarthy from Assiniboine Community College were awarded the gold medal for their Cast Iron Seared Hudson River Arctic Char with Smoked Maple Birch Glaze on Heritage Grain recipe.
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