1. From left to right: Jamie Stunt, Marc St. Jacques, Milton Rebello. 2. Stunt’s dish for the grand finale segment. 3. St. Jacques’ grand finale dish. All photos by Brian Chambers.
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Gold Medal Plates schedule for 2013 announced
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The 2013 Gold Medal Plates competitions will take place across the country as follows: Oct. 17: Halifax ( a return to the city for the first time since 2004) Oct. 24: Edmonton Oct. 25: Winnipeg Oct. 30: Toronto Nov. 1: Regina Nov. 2: Calgary Nov. 7: Victoria ( a change from Vancouver) Nov. 8: Saskatoon Nov. 14: St. John’s Nov. 18: Ottawa TBD: Montreal.
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Stunt’s grand finale dish of yak turned heads both with judges and attendees. Like many of the other competitors, Stunt changed his dish significantly between the regional competitions and Kelowna due to seasonality. “We kept the beer [from Ashton Brewing Company] and the yak, but we ended up changing everything else,” Stunt said in an interview with ORN. “We didn’t want to use tomatillos flown in from Mexico rather than a great one from here, and we definitely didn’t want to serve a worse version of the same dish that we served at regionals.” Stunt sources yak from Tiraislin Farms just outside of Ottawa for Oz Kafe. “We like to use it at the restaurant, and felt it’s a unique product that set ourselves apart from the other competitors. It was a strategic decision, plus yak is also really delicious.” Stunt’s dish included tamari sauce, barley miso mayo, smoked boar vinaigrette, crisped barley, mushrooms, and a mussel shell with caviar, egg white and yolk and beer vinaigrette, said Chatto. “He was the first guy to do yak for Gold Medal Plates, and I’m glad he did,” he said. “He surrounded it with a garland of flavours and textures, but everything made sense. Although it looked like he put a million things on the plate, there was
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M A R C H 2 013
a lot of thought behind it. Nothing was random.” The black box round proved to be a challenge for both chefs, who had never done them before outside of practice rounds and job interviews. St. Jacques, senior sous chef Moto Nishimura and sous chef David Matus went over the allotted time by 18 seconds, which carried a stiff penalty (five per cent of points are docked for every 30 seconds after the 60 minute time limit.) “We figured we were out of the competition at that point,” said St. Jacques. “We had done well, but we had been told that if you run over, you can’t place in the top three.” Four chefs at this stage lost points, said Chatto, who advises future competitors to practice timing with a stopwatch and allow enough time for plating. Although Stunt and his sous chefs Simon Bell and Mike Bednarz finished on time, they ended up using every second. On the advice of last year’s winner, fellow Ottawa chef Marc Lepine, Stunt’s team did four black box trials. “It does help, but only to a certain degree – if you have preconceived notions, it can work against you if you’re clinging to an idea. You need to be flexible,” he warned. This year’s black box items included red fife wheat flour, farmed sturgeon caviar, a strongly flavoured, firm goat gruyère, Tuscan kale, heritage Anjou pears, and bone-in shoulder and neck of lamb, according to Chatto.
The third hurdle to the podium was a wine pairing challenge, with Norman Hardie 2010 County Pinot Noir as the mystery wine. St. Jacques, a nondrinker, presented a shabu shabu inspired broth with beets, cabbage, mustard, fruit, and raw enoki mushrooms poured over sirloin. “I wanted that first punch of flavour, but wanted to think about what sits on your palate after that bite,” said St. Jacques. “A lot of the time, that’s where wine pairings are delicious.” Stunt served up a lamb tartare with a mixture of ground, seared and hand-cut meats, accompanied by roasted beets and a smoked turkey mayonnaise among the components, according to Chatto. Ultimately, both chefs are proud to showcase their city’s cuisines on the national stage. “I was happy to represent Ottawa well,” said Stunt, who was honoured by the support that the city’s chefs showed. “We had 28 different people come out to cover Oz Kafe when we were out west.” St. Jacques was also appreciative of his staff ’s efforts. “It’s a great experience to see the team out there,” he said. “It’s not about the winning, but how they dealt with people, always being positive and extremely organized...it’s all the things you tell people that come into restaurants to cook. It made me very excited to get back into the kitchen and keep cooking.”
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Heinz bought out by Buffett-owned consortium PITTSBURGH—Heinz announced in February that it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to be acquired by an investment consortium made up of 3G Capital and Berkshire Hathaway, helmed by billionaire investor Warren Buffett. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2013, said Heinz chairman, president and CEO William R. Johnson during a press conference on Feb. 14. “We are mindful of how we got here. This will deepen our roots in Pittsburgh and build more loyalty in our brand,” he said, noting that
the company will remain headquartered in Pittsburgh. There are currently 1,200 employees at the Pittsburgh location, said 3G Capital managing partner Alex Behring. When asked about 3G’s previous record of aggressive cost cutting, Behring said “we’ve been involved in a variety of fields in the past, and some had a lot of cost optimization and efficiencies.” “Here, we’re just getting involved and have several months ahead,” he said. “This is a company that’s doing extremely well as it is and has been doing extremely well for a long time.”
The transaction, valued at $28 billion, which Heinz is calling the “largest ever in the food industry”, is still subject to approval by Heinz shareholders, receipt of regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. The deal has been in the works since mid-November 2012, said Behring. “I think initially, even probably a year from now, that nothing will change within the view from Pittsburgh, except not being listed in stock tables,” said Johnson. “We’re hoping for the ability to use this as a platform to sort of get bigger in the global food industry.”
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