GILROY
– The SakaBozzo show always brings lots of crowds to the
cook-off stage for laughter with a lesson on cooking cuisine, but
this year I had the privilege of being one of these celebrity chefs
and let’s just say the experience was
”
unforgettable.
”
GILROY – The SakaBozzo show always brings lots of crowds to the cook-off stage for laughter with a lesson on cooking cuisine, but this year I had the privilege of being one of these celebrity chefs and let’s just say the experience was “unforgettable.”
Sam Bozzo and Gene Sakahara have been involved with the festival since its beginning and have showcased many delicious dishes each year. This year they were busy over at Gourmet Alley with their new stir-fry dish that was a big hit and had already sold more than 2,800 servings by the time I met up with them at 10:30 a.m. Sunday.
This Italian/Japanese duo welcomed me with big hugs, and we began to prepare the ingredients for the big show at 1:30 p.m. All of the raw ingredients are set up for the audience to see, but a cooked and completed dish is ready to present to the crowd at the end of the show.
“It’s the magic of television that we get to have one already prepared,” Sakahara said.
We were, of course, celebrity chefs. So we had to take time out to be interviewed by Gilroy’s cable channel 20. We rehearsed the script, put on our chef’s jackets and hooked up the microphones. Sakahara didn’t hesitate to make sure everyone’s zippers were up.
I told them they were really taking a chance on me as a chef, because I usually can’t even cook macaroni and cheese. Sakahara laughed and said he would try to be nice: I knew I was in for it.
The duo began by welcoming the crowd and getting them excited about the three dishes we would be preparing. I stood there and looked out at the people who had packed the bleachers to see us and started to get a little nervous, but thank goodness I wasn’t the only one.
“I always get butterflies on stage; that’s the exciting part,” Sakahara said.
“I even had a dream the other night that I totally missed the cook-off,” Bozzo said.
Our first dish was called timballo di maccheroni e melanzane, inspired by the movie “The Big Night.” My job was to put the timballo, Italian for eggplant, into the bowl. We told the crowd everything we were doing. As I scattered the cilantro over the top, Sakahara would not let me stop until I yelled “pow” and threw it in the bowl.
Both Sakahara and Bozzo have a great way of working with the crowd, and I could tell that the laughter was bringing people from the surrounding areas to see what was so funny. We then had to make the meatballs that are placed on top of the dish. My job was to roll them.
Sakahara joked, “Jen, we don’t have a show that goes til 5, you are going to have to roll a little faster.”
The crowd laughed.
The two decided to start impersonating celebrity chefs like Martin Yam and Julia Childs. I thought Sakahara made a great Julia Childs, and the crowd loved it.
“That’s what being an entertainer is all about,” Sakahara said. “We live for the applause.”
My next task was to help make the rice balls, and Sakahara instructed me to make them into a shape of a triangle. His definitely looked like a triangle, but mine was in his words, “an oblong thing.”
The crowd laughed.
Sakahara made Bozzo taste my wasabi rice ball and let’s just say he went running for the water.
“Oh man, that definitely cleared out my sinuses,” Bozzo said.
The two completed the show by making their new stir-fry dish with lots of vegetables, garlic and chicken. Everyone was clapping and yelling out how much they loved it.
As my day under the lights with these stove-top legends was coming to an end, I realized I would stick to my day job and let these characters keep feeding the crowds.
“We will always love cooking and entertaining and and we are always happy to add a little spice to Gilroy,” Sakahara said.
