It was my great pleasure to judge the first (and one would hope) annual #pumpkinoff on the lawns of the Fairmont Empress Hotel last Friday October 29th, 2010.
Martin Leclerc, General Manager and Angela Rafuse-Tahir, Director of Sales, issued the challenge to their Inner Harbour neighbour, the Hotel Grand Pacific.
Just what is a #pumpkinoff? Nothing more than a genteel culinary smack-down and display of carving wizardy between two venerable institutions. The executive chefs, Takashi Ito (Empress) and Rick Choy (Grand Pacific) were charged with carving giant pumpkins and creating phenomenal dessserts for the privilege of taking home the Golden Gourd.
Chef Ito sourced his 700lb beauty from the Roost on the Saanich Peninsula as did Chef Choy his much smaller 200lb pumpkin.
The weather cooperated wonderfully and a small crowd of social media judges, media, locals and tourists gathered on the lawns as teams from the two hotels displayed their creations while the chefs began carving. It soon became very apparent that pumpkin carving, even when assisted with power tools, as was Chef Ito, is not quite as easy as ice carving. The chefs worked feverishly in a relatively short time span to finish.
Dessert creations included an adult version multi-layered pumpkin based chocolate bar from the team at the Hotel Grand Pacific and a marsapone pumpkin bread pudding paired with pumpkin bourbon mousse from the Fairmont Empress. What ingenuity and creative flair! It made judging a very difficult task, indeed.
In the end Chef Ito bested Chef Choy by one single point to be declared the winner of the Golden Gourd.
My fellow judges included: Jay Sutton-Brown, Awesome Yoga; Dan Parks, Creative Planners Unlimited @cpudan; Sasha Angus, the Greater Victoria Economic Development Agency; Margaret Doyle, School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Royal Roads University; Anita Willis, editor, Scrimp or Splurge. After the rigours of judging, we retired to the Bengal Lounge for cocktails and chat.
Thank you to the Fairmont Empress for inviting us to participate, and for creating fun events to celebrate tourism, hospitality, culinary arts, and food in our capital city. After the #poutineoff last May and the #pumpkinoff - what #off will be next? Any guesses or suggestions?
