Dan Walker from Weczeria Food & Wine Takes Top Honours at Saskatoon's Gold
Medal Plates Competition
SASKATOON, SK, Nov. 2 /CNW/ - Chef Dan Walker of Weczeria Food & Wine proved his culinary prowess Saturday night when he took home the gold award at the Saskatoon 2010 Gold Medal Plates competition. Chef Walker went head-to-head with Saskatchewan's finest culinary masters at this prestigious culinary competition, held at TCU Place in Saskatoon on Saturday October 30, 2010. He will compete at the Canadian Culinary Championships, the Gold Medal Plates Finale, held in Kelowna Feb. 18th and 19th.
To secure the win, Chef Walker wowed the judges with a dish of wild boar belly and leg served with carrots, sunchoke and Yukon Gold potato gnocchi. The paired wine was Road 13 Rockpile 2008 from Okanagan Valley, British Columbia.
"It's amazing," Walker said after being announced the winner. "Everybody worked really hard . . . it was a whole team effort to win this - I'm just a public face."
Chef Ryan Marquis of the Delta Bessborough, rose to the occasion as well, taking the silver medal. Chef Ryan's team created a play on bacon and eggs serving a smoked molasses maple pork belly with a parsnip mouseline and a foie gras crème brulee set in an egg shell cup. The paired wine was Black Hills Nota Bene 2008 from British Columbia
Taking the bronze medal was Chef Anthony McCarthy of The Saskatoon Club. His dish was a braised pig cheek served with a semi dehydrated Prairie Sensation apple pirozhki along with fava beans and chantelle mushrooms topped with a black truffle and skin crisp. The paired wine was Peller Estates Pinot Blanc 2008 also from Okanagan Valley, British Columbia.
The guests were not only treated to the finest in food, they also had the opportunity to mingle with celebrated Olympians and Paralympians including keynote speaker and Vancouver 2010 Olympic hero, Alexandre Bilodeau who was inspiring and captivating in his hot stove interview with Catriona Le May Doan as he allowed the guests to relive his gold medal moment and entertained by Jim Cuddy, Colin James, Barney Bentall and Ron James who brought the house down!
The event, had a sold out audience of over 520 guests in attendance and they were there to support the Own the Podium fund. The live auction along raised over $350,000 - a record breaker! Some of the hottest items - Jim Cuddy charmed the audience which resulted in 6 Under the Tuscan Sun trips being sold for $12,500 each where Jim along with Barney Bentall and fiddler Anne Lindsay will perform a concert under the stars and guests will have a chance to cycle with Olympians Marnie McBean, Curt Harnett, Chandra Crawford and Devon Kershaw! The Napa Wine Country experience hosted by the lovely Catriona Le May Doan, Jennifer Heil and musician Colin James fetched $10,000 per trip and an amazing 7 of them were sold!
The 2010 Gold Medal Plates Competition
Gold Medal Plates is the ultimate celebration of Canadian Excellence in cuisine, wine, entertainment and athletic achievement. Celebrating in eight cities across Canada in 2010, Gold Medal Plates will feature superb wines and the premier chefs in each city, paired with Canadian Olympic and Paralympic athletes, in a competition to crown a gold, silver and bronze medal culinary team in each city, and subsequently nation-wide. Founded in 2003, the goal of Gold Medal Plates is to raise substantial funds for Canada's high performance athletes, while celebrating Canadian excellence. Since 2004, this event has received tremendous support and accolades all across Canada, and generated a combined net total of $4.1 million for Canada's Olympic and Paralympic athletes! For more information, visit the Gold Medal Plates website www.goldmedalplates.com.
Canadian Olympic Foundation - The Beneficiary of the events: Net proceeds from Gold
Medal Plates are given to the Canadian Olympic Foundation to support high performance
programs such as Own the Podium. To learn more about the Foundation and the programs
it funds, please visit www.olympicfoundation.ca.
For further information:
Zeba Ahmad at 306-222-6700
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