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Staff from Araxi’s and other Top Table restaurants to cook at James Beard House

Culinary contests have enjoyed a revival in the last few years.

From Iron Chef, a Japanese game show-like cooking contest, to your local Community Days chili and jam jamboree, it’s popular to show off your best.

But there is little doubt in the gourmet world one of the highest honours to be bestowed on a chef is to be invited to James Beard House in New York to prepare a meal for selected guests.

The challenge here is to create an imaginative and mouth-watering meal showcasing local products in a very small commercial kitchen.

It celebrates what chefs and sommeliers do all over the world every night as they strive to tantalize our taste buds.

Next week Araxi chef Scott Kidd will be joined by five other chefs from Jack Evrensel’s Top Table restaurant group at James Beard House to show off West Coast fare.

Sushi chef Max Katsuno of Blue Water Cafe, David Hawksworth of Ouest, executive chef James Walt of Blue Water Cafe, Romy Prasad of CinCin and chef Patissier Thierry Busset of Ouest will saute, broil, and bake for their New York audience.

All the chefs are internationally recognized in their own right.

Walt, who was formerly chef at Araxi, has already had the honour of cooking at James Beard House in 1998. In July 2000 The Globe and Mail named Walt as one of five chefs recognized for shaping the nation.

Katsuno is no stranger to performing. He worked along Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto at Lenge.

A Vancouverite by birth, Hawksworth spent nine years honing his talents at some of Europe’s finest Michelin-starred restaurants, including the acclaimed Manoir aux Quat Saisons with Raymond Blanc. He came home to open Ouest in December 2000.

Busset has travelled the world as a leading pastry chef. He worked his magic at The Restaurant in London’s Hyde Park Hotel as well as at La Gavroche.

A graduate of Ritz Esscoffier Cooking School in Paris, Prasad has worked at several Michelin-starred restaurants in France, Spain and Italy. He uses his classic training to prepare modern Italian dishes using only the best in seasonal and local harvest.

Each will create a course crafted out of uniquely British Columbian fare.

Line-caught Sablefish, with its melt-in-your-mouth buttery flavour enhanced by a Hiryuzu, baby carrots and smoked Bonito broth prepared by Katsuno will delight the pallet, as will halibut from the Queen Charlotte Islands, wild salmon from the Taku River,and a host of B.C. grown produce.

Walt’s halibut will be served with Cobble Hill asparagus, Deep Cup Kusshi Oysters, and Gooseneck Barnacle Tempura.

Hawksworth’s salmon confit will lie alongside a beignet of West Coast Spot Prawn and watercress coulis.

For meat lovers Kidd will prepare a Navarin of Arbutus Bay Farm Spring Lamb accompanied by Cat Tails, Fraser River crayfish, fava beans, and wild crafted Sorrel.

Prasad will prepare tortellini of braised buffalo cheeks and grilled buffalo loin with spring root vegetable pave and morel mushrooms.

No great meal is complete, of course, without a sweet sensation at the end. Busset will serve organic strawberry sable and organic apple tart.

Everything from hand churned butter from the Kootenays, to locally produced coffee and our own mountain spring water will be carefully carried in large coolers to the Big Apple.

Generally most food items are not allowed across the border but Top Table executives have met with consular officials and cleared the way for the B.C. ingredients, which will educate the gastronomic world on the wonders of the coastal fare.

Senior management, will also accompany the chefs to act as hosts and ambassadors. Two accredited sommeliers, Chris Van Nus of Araxi’s and Brian Hopkins, will also travel to New York as part of the team.

The sommeliers will showcase some of British Columbia’s finest wines, including Mission Hill Family Estate Chardonnay 2000, which is aged in French oak as opposed to American oak.

This makes the wine "a little more lemony, a little more structured, not quite as floral, so a little more European in style," said Van Nus.

He is also looking forward to serving the Black Hills Estate Winery Nota Bene 1999, another wine which exemplifies B.C.’s move toward producing its own unique vintages rather than copies of wines produced elsewhere.

Some of the wines being taken are available at specialty stores, although most are on allocation only to restaurants.

Each course will be served with two wines not one, said Van Nus, in an effort to encourage people to explore their palate for food and wine and challenge them to think about how each vintage compliments the cuisine.

"I’ve almost made it a little more of an educational tool this time," said Van Nus who was part of the 1998 Araxi team to go James Beard House.

"Our team is very honoured and very excited to be going there and showing New Yorkers what we do here in British Columbia," said Annabel Sutton, spokeswoman for the Top Table Group.

"The James Beard House is a very revered culinary institution. James Beard was really the forefather of American gastronomy and when he died they turned his house into this institute,

"They have guest chefs cooking at the Beard House every other night of the year.

"Chefs from all around the world, established chefs and emerging talent. come by invitation only."

Throughout his life Beard pursued and advocated the highest standards, and served as a mentor to emerging talents in the field of the culinary arts.

After Beard’s death in 1985 Julia Child had the idea to preserve his New York home as the gathering place it was during his life. Former student Peter Kump, founder of Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School, spearheaded the effort to purchase the house and create the foundation.

Today the James Beard Foundation also provides scholarships and educational opportunities, serves as a resource for the industry and offers its members the opportunity to enjoy the delights of fine dinning.

Nearly every night culinary talents such as Emeril Lagasse, Nobu Matsuhisa, Jacques Pepin, Wolfgang Puck and others work their magic in Beard’s kitchen.