2010 Winter Ultimate Kitchen Challenge — Selecting Your Cooking Competition Menu

 

•    Gingerbread Baby Cakes with Aunt Mimi’s Bourbon Cream Sauce
•    Pumpkin Brioche Bread Pudding with Caramel Sauce
•    Crespelli Gianduja: Crepes filled with Hazelnut-Chocolate Cream
•    Warm Scharffen Berger Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel Sauce
•    Dulce de Leche Quatro Leches Cakes
•    Mini Apple Upside-Down Cornmeal Cakes with Soft Whipped Cream
•    Almond Butter Cake with Poached Oranges
•    Mexican Chocolate Soufflés with Soft Cinnamon Whipped Cream

The Ultimate Kitchen Challenge includes:

• A two-hour client communication workshop led by Executive Business Coach Starla Sireno.  Starla has worked extensively with both entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs -- leaders within organizations who are building new ventures, new product lines or new brands.  She transforms compelling visions into compelling results by helping executives, managers and team leaders reinvigorate the entrepreneurial spirit in themselves and in their teams.

 

Starla will hold a 30-minute pre-event consultation with you to understand your team building goals, and define areas for communication skill development and growth.  Her goal is to help turn your team into a high performance team, one that communicates effectively and without fear. 

 

• A two-hour Kitchen Challenge involving hands-on cooking and an opportunity to demonstrate communication skills and build teamwork. Each competing team is tasked with preparing an original three-component meal -- protein, starch and vegetable -- and a dessert.  The teams have 60 minutes to wield their culinary prowess and submit for judging a fully plated meal.  They are judged on taste, creativity and teamwork.  In addition, they are judged on their ability to execute as a result of good communication.  To encourage teambuilding, each team will elect an MVP for their team. MVPs win a cookbook (our popular recipe card deck), and the winning team members exchange hi-fives with Parties That Cook embroidered oven mitts. At the end of the competition, after bonding through working together, guests sit down to a relaxing and gastronomic dining experience.

So How Does It Work?

 

Upon arrival, guests are welcomed with a beverage of your choice and hors d’œuvres.  Guests have an opportunity to mingle, meet their chefs, and skim the extensive pantry to get their creative juices flowing.  They will find cooking stations outfitted with kitchen equipment and tools, fresh produce cleaned and prepped, and tables set for an elegant sit-down dinner. We will play music personalized to your group’s taste.

 

Once all your guests have arrived and are comfortably settled, your Lead Chef will kick off the event with an introduction of the Ultimate Kitchen Challenge competition and how it works. Starla Sireno will then lead the communication workshop.   In this interactive workshop, she will cover topics based on her pre-event consultation with you.  

 

Following the workshop, the Lead Chef will introduce the Kitchen Challenge competition guidelines and rules of engagement. He/she will also unveil the Challenge Ingredients you have selected. This is followed by an interactive cooking demonstration where your guests will learn kitchen tips and tricks and knife skills -- applicable to both the novice and the gourmet chef -- which they can use to get an edge against the competition, and for a lifetime. The guests are divided into teams, either predetermined by you or chosen by the chef. 

 

This is where the newly acquired communication skills get cooking! Teams will have five minutes to whisk up a catchy team name, choose a project manager to lead their effort, define the 10 key questions that they will ask the Lead Chef in order to extract the clues to the cuisine theme. Based on interviews with the Lead Chef, each team will tailor their cuisine to their new "customer" (the Lead Chef). Both teams then come together in an open forum with the Lead Chef to knead out the clues to identify the secret theme(s).  They will grill the Lead Chef on his/her needs, likes/dislikes, and preferences.  Aside from identifying the correct theme, the team that can cater best to the Lead Chef’s special needs aka “golden nugget” will also get extra points.  The other professional chefs will not be privy to any of the information from the forum.

 

Prior to the competition start bell, each team will have another 10 minutes to confer, gain consensus and buy-in on the cuisine direction. Once they have concurred on the cuisine direction, they will brief the professional chef, who is assigned to the team as coach, the cuisine theme and Lead Chef’s requirements.  Together, they will carve out a menu that will shred and fry the competition. We encourage a divide-and-conquer strategy for the battle, so each team will form subgroups to tackle the protein, starch, vegetable and dessert.  We will also provide recipe packets, in case any team needs a dash of inspiration or prefers spoon-fed directions.  The Lead Chef then rings the start bell for 60 minutes of competitive cooking and triggers the race to the pantry stocked with delectably fresh ingredients.  At the 60th minute, each team will present their entry – a plate exhibiting all 3 components and complete with creative plate presentation, and a dessert - for show and tell and judging submission.  Each Team Leader is given a couple of minutes to announce their cuisine theme, the golden nugget and market and sell the team’s creation.  The teams will then proceed to plate and sit down to enjoy the 4-star gourmet meal they have whipped up.  Our wait staff will ensure the best professional and top restaurant-quality service as your guests enjoy the fruits of their labor.

 

During the meal, the judges will assess the dishes submitted based on these criteria: taste, seasoning, appearance, texture as well as the originality of the dish, and plate presentation.  In addition, points are also given for getting the cuisine theme right, and for identifying the golden nugget.  There will be several category winners – best protein, best starch, best vegetable, best dessert and best plate presentation – and a grand overall winner.  The Lead Chef will announce the MVP from each team at the end of the main course, and the category winners and winning team during dessert.  MVPs will get a set of the Parties That Cook Sumptuous Small Plates recipe deck by Bibby Gignilliat (a $17.95 value each) and winning team members will get a specially designed Parties That Cook chef toque each (a $12 value each).