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Chefs Choice: Ronnie Shewchuk and Joel Peterson

So, the Godfather of Zin and Canada's Barbecue Evangelist walked into a bar... beque. What sounds like the start of a joke really isn't. It's serious stuff plus a whole lot of fun.
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Joel Peterson of Ravenswood Wines, left, and Canadian barbecue champion Ronnie Shewchuk, right, on the terrace at Dusty's. Photo by Cathryn Atkinson

So, the Godfather of Zin and Canada's Barbecue Evangelist walked into a bar... beque.

What sounds like the start of a joke really isn't. It's serious stuff plus a whole lot of fun. It involves Joel Peterson, the found of Ravenswood Winery in Sonoma, Calif., whose mission is to have Zinfandel take over the world, and Rockin' Ronnie Shewchuk, author of "Barbecue Secrets DELUXE" and the first actual Canadian winner of the Canadian National Barbecue Championships.

The bar in question is Dusty's Bar & Grill in Creekside and the occasion for this particular pairing is this year's Canadian National Barbecue Championships, which took place at Creekside from Aug. 2 to Aug. 4

The competition pit local grilling talent against legends and these two are firmly in the latter category. For one thing, Ravenswood is one of the sponsors of the weekend, part of an involvement north of the border that has gone back years now.

Peterson and Shewchuk became friends after first working together at the championships in Whistler four years ago. Both talk up a storm while explaining their areas of expertise: Shewchuk on how to set meat and other foods off to perfection on the barbecue and Peterson on what wine goes well with such delicious offerings.

They hosted an afternoon for local sommeliers on Aug. 2, kicking off a busy weekend for both.

Shewchuk came to barbecue, a "prairie boy from Edmonton genetically predisposed to eat meat," via watching as a child the Galloping Gourmet cooking a London Broil. Shewchuk feverishly wrote down the recipe and made it for his family. He also took charge at teenager barbecues.

Shewchuk took the professional plunge over 20 years ago, getting involved "as a weekend hobbyist" with a friend who had just bought a cheap smoker from Costco. They entered a contest in Calgary under the Kansas City Barbecue Society rules.

"They weren't getting any Canadian teams. A bunch of American teams would come up, compete... all these ringers from the U.S. would come up and it would be easy pickings. It was an international contest and if you won it, you'd automatically get invited to the Jack Daniels and American Royal (invitational barbecue championships)," Shewchuk recalled.

The organizers of the Calgary competition brought in a champion from Washington State named Bob Lyon to teach competitive barbecuing and "from that seed barbecue culture in Western Canada was born... We competed in the next BBQ on the Bow in Calgary and fell in love with it."

Then Shewchuk and his team won the Oregon State Open national championship and they were on the map, the first non-U.S. team to win.

"When we got called up there was a kind of weird silence. They were really gracious but it was like 'those Canadians won?'" he said above Peterson's laughter.

"That catapulted us to a new level and we were more inspired. I ended up writing a cookbook..."

Shewchuk and his partner Denzel Sandberg have also started their own line of barbecue sauces called Ronnie & Denzils. The three of us sipped two reds and tried a new maple sauce on our finger, to see how the flavours blended. Joel said that taste-wise it turned two glasses of wine into four and he's not far off.

These days, almost all the teams in Calgary are Canadian. Shewchuk has paid his experiences forward in Whistler, holding workshops that have trained up-and-comers here, the first class taught around 15 years ago.

"Some of the competitors here are my students and it's very gratifying. I'm not going to take all the credit, but I have been part of a movement, as Joel was in California, and I was early in on it. We have a lot in common."

Ravenswood Wines could have been tailor-made for barbecued meat, something Shewchuk understood straight away, he said.

Peterson came to his vintner career with a scientist's mind, which would be an easy enough thing to develop with a nuclear chemist mother who told her son that scrambling eggs was "denaturing protein." His father was a chemist, too, who started a wine club and got his son involved at the age of 10.

"And from then on it was all downhill!" Peterson laughed.

That fascination has carried through to Ravenswood's growth. Peterson was part of the first wave of promoting Zinfandel and other deep-bodied reds, which he considers the most authentic wines in California, thanks in part to the quality of vines, some a hundred years old or more.

"It's a cultural thing, it's a story, it's the multiple levels in which food and wine work, Peterson said."

Cedar Planked Wild B.C. Salmon With Whiskey-Maple Glaze

Serves 6 to 8

1 cedar cooking plank, soaked overnight or at least 1 hour

1/2 cup/125 mL Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey

1 cup/250 mL real maple syrup

1 tsp./5 mL crushed hot red chilies

1 Tbsp./15 mL butter at room temperature

1-3 lb./1-1.5 kg whole, boned wild BC salmon filet

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp./5 mL granulated onion

(or onion powder if you can't find granules)

2 lemons, halved

parsley sprigs for garnish

1 Tbsp./ 15 mL finely chopped flat-leaf Italian parsley

Make the sauce by combining the whiskey and maple syrup. In a small saucepan, bring the mixture to a low boil and reduce by about half, until you have a thick syrup that coats the back of a spoon. Add the chilies and butter and stir until just combined. Set aside and keep warm on the stovetop.

Season the skinless side of the wild B.C . salmon with salt, pepper and granulated onion. Let the wild B.C. salmon sit for 10 or 15 minutes at room temperature, until the rub is moistened.

While the wild B.C. salmon is sitting, preheat the grill on medium-high for five or 10 minutes or until the chamber temperature rises above 500° F/260° C. Rinse the plank and place it on the cooking grate. Cover the grill and heat the plank for four or five minutes, or until it starts to throw off a bit of smoke and crackles lightly. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Season the plank with kosher salt and place the wild BC salmon, skin-side down, on the plank.

Cover the grill and cook for 15 to 20 minutes or until the fish has an internal temperature of 135°F/57° C. Check periodically to make sure the plank doesn't catch fire, and spray the burning edges with water if it does, making sure to close the lid afterwards.

When the wild B.C .salmon is done, squeeze half a lemon along its length and carefully transfer to a platter. Garnish with parsley sprigs and the remaining lemon cut into slices. Bring the salmon to the table. Drizzle a spoonful of the sauce over each portion as you serve and sprinkle with a little chopped parsley.