As soon as emcee and Bravo network star Fabio Viviani unveiled a
giant pile of heirloom tomatoes as the secret ingredient, the
celebrity contestants in the 2009 Garlic Showdown began slicing,
chopping, pureeing, roasting and blending the juicy red fruits they
pulled out of seemingly endless baskets.
As soon as emcee and Bravo network star Fabio Viviani unveiled a giant pile of heirloom tomatoes as the secret ingredient, the celebrity contestants in the 2009 Garlic Showdown began slicing, chopping, pureeing, roasting and blending the juicy red fruits they pulled out of seemingly endless baskets.
The cooks and their sous chefs picked from an array of fresh fruits, herbs, spices and vegetables supplied by the showdown committee – ingredients they quickly minced, cut or crushed, then mixed together in impromptu combinations and threw into frying pans and boiling pots of water. The popping sound of hot oil and the scents of a mixture of fresh flavors led, without surprise, by garlic, filled the air minutes into the hour of allotted cooking time, which started around 12 p.m. Sunday.
“Tomatoes go great with garlic,” said contestant Jamie Lauren, who has gained national notoriety recently from her participation on the Bravo series “Top Chef.” “However, some of these other ingredients do not go so great with tomatoes,” she joked while trying to decide quickly what two dishes she could prepare to win the $5,000 grand prize.
Judges roamed around the cooking stage, which boasted plenty of room for all the contestants’ equipment, ingredients and preparation needs. The judges were eager and curious to find out to what dishes they would soon apply their expert taste buds in determining which was the best.
Ryan Scott, another “Top Chef” star and a contestant in Sunday’s showdown, began cutting a watermelon into chunks, which would then be simmered with onions, tomatoes and herbs and used as a topping for a pan-fried tenderloin steak.
Contestant and syndicated food columnist Bruce Paton was excited about the choice of tomatoes as the secret ingredient.
“They’re at the peak of the season,” said Arturo Ponce, Paton’s sous chef. “They’ll go well with a chicken roulade we’re making, with spinach and mushrooms and garlic.” The pair also roasted about a dozen half-tomatoes with garlic and olive oil, which a few minutes later became a sauce to be used as a topping on a petite filet mignon encrusted with sea salt and chocolate five-spice powder.
“(The sauce) will make it more intense,” Ponce said.
As soon as he knew heirloom tomatoes – supplied by Sherry’s Farm in Gilroy – were in play, contestant Brian Christenson and sous chef Kevin Hincks began stuffing the secret ingredient into a blender for their own tomato sauce recipe. Christenson’s sauce would top three different kinds of pasta that Hincks made by hand.
“Tomatoes are like the chicken of vegetables – they can be used in any application, and it’s a fun ingredient to have as your mystery ingredient,” Hincks said.
Christenson added that he uses heirloom tomatoes daily in his restaurant, where he even makes fresh mozzarella every day to accompany them.
The Gilroy Garlic Festival’s “Garlic Showdown” is only in its third year but is already a resounding success, according to organizers and audience members.
The 750 seats at the festival’s main stage were full during the two-hour competition, and Viviani had to shoo away standing onlookers from the edges of the contest area.
And Viviani, who will have his own primetime television series in the fall, charmed the audience with witty replies to every comment shouted out from the stands during the showdown, spontaneous watermelon giveaways to children passing in front of the stage, and playful teasing of the contestants while they were sweating against the clock to finish their gourmet concoctions.
Audience member Heather MacKenzie was rooting for Lauren, partially because she eats often at the contestant’s restaurant, Absinthe Brasserie and Bar in San Francisco.
“Absinthe is near my neighborhood, and it’s one of my favorite restaurants,” said MacKenzie, 31, who is also a longtime fan of Viviani.
Another fan of both stars of the culinary entertainment world is Arnetta Smith of Oakland. She didn’t know the pair would be on the same stage when she arrived at the Garlic Festival Sunday morning, but made sure to get a good seat when she found out.
“I’m a big fan of ‘Top Chef,'” Smith, 29, said.
Added Lindsay Simpson, 25, of Monterey, “It’s very entertaining. Fabio is doing a good job commentating. Most people couldn’t hold an audience for an hour like he can.”
Inspired by a once-popular television series, “Iron Chef,” the Garlic Showdown pits four professional and critically acclaimed cooks from the Bay Area against each other. The contest, in which cooks have to prepare two dishes in one hour, centers around the use of a mystery ingredient that the cooks do not know until just before the contest starts.
Judge and co-founder of the Garlic Showdown Barbara DeLorenzo said the contest was added as a way to “spruce up” the Garlic Festival, which did not used to have a main event on Sunday. She said the crowd’s reception to the Showdown is worth the complicated logistics of supplying four miniature kitchens and pantries equipped with staple ingredients.
“We thought it would be fun, but we didn’t expect the response we’ve received (from festival-goers),” DeLorenzo said.
The winner of the Garlic Showdown is decided by a panel of judges with a variety of backgrounds that may or may not include professional food expertise. Criteria include presentation, originality and use of the secret ingredient.
After Sunday’s time was up, the six judges attentively tasted all eight dishes and made notes while wide-eyed fans sought autographs from Viviani and Lauren. When the suspense built up and the sweat stopped soaking through the chefs’ white shirts – likely more a factor of the 95-degree heat than nerves – Scott was announced as the winner of the 2009 Garlic Showdown.
“He captured the freshness (of the ingredients), and he adhered to the secret ingredient better than any of the other contestants,” judge and local chef Sam Bozzo explained.
Scott said he will put the $5,000 prize money, donated by Raley’s and Nob Hill Foods, back into his business and web site, www.ryanscott2go.com.
He explained his choice of recipes as “summer-themed,” with a cold pasta and use of raw vegetables. He and sous chef Evan Rich even ventured out into local hills to pick wild herbs to use as ingredients a couple of days prior to the showdown.
Judge and former San Francisco 49ers defensive lineman Dana Stubblefield said he voted for Scott because the taste of all the ingredients stood out in his dishes, with no overpowering flavors.
“It was nice and subtle and refreshing on a hot day like this,” Stubblefield said.
