• Turkey Platter for Eight
  • Nadine Roasted Turkey Breast
  • Tewis Style Corned Turkey Thigh
  • Applewood Smoked and Stuffed Burlington Wing
  • Kinsella Neck Sausage with Dried Fruit
  • Celery and Golden Raisin Salad
  • Marinated Haricot Vert
  • Markham Poached Pears with Stilton Mousse
  • Spiced Peach Chutney
  • Creamy Chive Herb Sauce
• Kent Island Fruits de Mer
  Sole, lobster, and mussels, warm herb scented tomato water, concasser, corn, and cucumber noodles.
• Phillipe Foie Gras Trio
  Terrine with pickled sweet potato tear drops and orange pomegranate reduction; Torchon with aged balsamic, roasted figs, appled and  petite greens; Mousse atop toasted fennel scented brioche, grey sea salt, and caramelized apple.
• Kentucky Rabbit
  Roasted rack of Owensborough-raised rabbit, fine herb farce, rich rabbit jus, warm roasted beet, and almond leg croquette atop warm sweet and sour red potato.
• St. Rona’s Divers Plate
  Sea scallop and serrano paired with snow crab agnolloti, bokchoy, spaghetti squash, fava beans, orange herb reduction and a Soubise citrus sauce.
• Duck Vonden Bancon Style
  Duck Osso Bucco style with pinot noir braising sauce paired with a hot smoked shiitake barded breast, celeriac puree, butternut squash, zucchini and rutabaga, cranberry compote.
• Vegetarian Splendor
  Grilled portabella with florentine panada, warm sumac crusted calypso bean sausage, crispy polenta with gorgonzola, asparagus and sundried tomato, black mustard seed and smoked tomato jam, and green curry.

Click any picture for a larger view.

• West Side Three Course Meal
  • Smoke Roasted Squab Breast with Cucumber
  • Black Peppercorn Creamy Herb Sauce=-=-
  • Poached Lobster Tail with Corn Custard and Turned Potatoes in Broth=-=-
  • Grand Marnier Mousse with Macerated Fruit and Duet of Passion Fruit and Pomegranate Sauces
• Owensville Duck Platter for Two
  • Roasted Leg of Duck
  • Duck Breast and Shiitake
  • Sweet Potatoes
  • Vegetable Accompaniment
  • Essence of Orange Duck Jus
• St. Omar Wild Boar Chop
  • Cous Cous
  • Vegetable Medley
  • Natural Jus
• Mediterranean Roulade
  • Turkey Tenderloin
  • Poached Pear
  • Polenta
  • Haricot Vert
  • Turkey Reduction
• Quinoa a la Quito
  • Quinoa Stuffed Cabbage Wrap
  • Vegetable Terrine
  • Stuffed Portabella Mushroom
  • Sweet Chili Sauce
• Terra Haute Striped Bass
  • Onion Tart
  • Rutabega
  • Fennel Sauce

Click any picture for a larger view.

We are very pleased with the performance of the Midwest Culinary Olympic Team as we earned two bronze medals in this competition. Additionally, Rick Potter & Alan Neace coached the Guatemalan team in their first-ever International Culinary Olympic participation, and the team earned a silver medal. Congratulations to the Guatemalan team and to Chefs Potter and Neace!

After the competition in Erfurt was over and we packed our equipment for shipping back to the United States and cleaned our preparation room, we celebrated in the hotel’s lobby with the hotel staff and members of the other teams, including folks from the Swedish, Slovakian, and Canadian teams. We had a great evening and enjoyed the Olympic spirit of camaraderie and cooperation with the other teams. Hanging out in the lobby and conversing with the other teams will be remembered as a highlight of the trip.

The next morning on October 23 (mentioned because it was my birthday!) I drove the team from Gotha to Munich. We were tired when we arrived after the long van trip and checking into the hotel, but our energy was bolstered at the original Hofbrauhaus, where we enjoyed traditional German food and beverages. It was a really good evening, though it ended rather early.

The next morning, we checked out of our hotel and stopped for a few photographs then went back to the shops near the Hofbrauhaus and shopped for various items and a few gifts to bring back to the States. There was a knife shop in the little row of shops, and a couple of us found nice cooking knives. Also, there was a terrific little gelato place, so Rick & I got gelatos. We couldn’t resist another visit to the Hofbrauhaus before leaving Munich.

After our lunch, we found our way back to the van and headed for Frankfurt where we will sleep in the airport hotel in order to be ready to catch our plane in the early afternoon. Brian and I got the van cleaned out and our final packing done.

Tomorrow, we get on the plane back to Cincinnati. It has been a wonderful, inspiring trip, but it will be nice to get home again.

There is still more to write, including an article that reveals our platters and plates from the competition. You can expect that – and more – in the very near future.

Greg’s plates looked amazing!

And, for the person who emailed Greg mentioning that he should smile more, here is a shot for you!:

Chef Stephane Thierry from the Radisson Hecla Oasis Resort in Manitoba Canada was our work-room-mate. He stopped by this evening and we had a great discussion, trading tips and techniques. Chef Stephane is a really nice, even-tempered individual and is extremely knowledgeable about the pastry kitchen. I hope we get to see him again in future competitions.

We have to pack the car at 4:30am to make the drive to Erfurt. It’s 2:42am now, and I am heading to bed for a couple-two-three hours of sleep since I have to drive. Most everything is done, and when I left them, the rest of the team was finishing putting aspic on Greg’s dishes. I feel like we’re ready for tomorrow, which will be another whirl-wind day – arrive at the convention center by 5:00am or so, set up Chef Skibinski’s plates, then leave to drive back to the hotel for a few hours shut-eye before Greg & I go back to the convention center to attend the awards ceremony and clean up. The rest of the team will stay in Gotha to begin organizing and packing our equipment to ship back to Cincinnati.

On a personal note, I have not been so tired and so exhilarated at once in a long, long time. I drag myself to bed for a few minutes (or hours) of sleep because my body simply cannot continue (I fell asleep at the hotel bar while waiting for beverages for the team!) and I lay in bed reviewing the events of the day and the to-do lists for the next time I get up. All the team members are feeling this way – Chef Rick Potter said, “even my toenails hurt”. Our spirit and enthusiasm remain high even though our energy is a bit subdued. I am pleased at how I’m holding up… My feet are killing me and my back hurts, but overall, I’m where I should be physically for the amount and type of work I’ve been doing.

Today, is the push for Chef Skibinski to finalize his presentation, get the items sliced and coated in aspic, and plated.

Around the hotel, teams from other countries have been competing. The sugar artist who shared our workspace – Stefan – was disappointed again after his mostly-finished sugar sculpture was damaged in transit from Canada. He worked valiantly and tirelessly to re-create his sugar sculpture here in Germany only to have his piece toppled at the convention by his tablemate who accidentally bumped their table. Stefan was amazingly relaxed about the experience – at least to us. The swiss military team took gold in their first event – congratulations! The South Korean team has been seemingly everywhere as they work to get their presentation finalized.

This morning, Brian and I will provide assistance anywhere it is necessary – finalizing printed menus, preparation work, errands, etc.

More updates to follow…

Congratulations, Chef Neace!

Chef Neace says, “Everything I’ve learned since I started competing in 1991 – and everything I’ve learned by competing in 2008 at the International Culinary Olympics – comes back to enrich the learning experience of the students of the Midwest Culinary Institute at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College”.

Here are a few photos of Chef Neace from the awards ceremony. Click any photo to view a larger size.

Good luck Chef Greg Skibinski, who competes on Wednesday!

The convention center at Erfurt was packed – literally full to the brim – with culinary-related presentations, booths, chefs, and the foodie public. The International Culinary Olympics is the largest event of its kind in the world. Despite being weary, it was invigorating to be among so many food professionals! Seeing the work of other competitors was enlightening and awe-inspiring. I’ve added a bunch of photos of their work to the gallery (note: photos of our entries are not up yet, and captions for everything are coming soon) for your review.

We wandered, mouths agape at the spectacle, through three giant halls full of vendors verifying the location of our table and looking for a few elusive pieces to complete our presentation – a ladle & a couple specific cookie-cutters. We found the cutters we were missing and were able to negotiate with the vendor, who agreed to let us pay him the few Euros that we were short when we return tomorrow. Brian and I also took a few minutes to admire the work of the competitors who had presented their platters that day before jumping in the van and heading back to the preparation room.

When we got back to the hotel, it was time to get Chef Neace’s presentation together, so while Brian worked on menus and various display elements, I worked with the chefs in the kitchen while they sliced items, dipped them into aspic, and prepared the layout of the platters and plates. This process took several hours as each individual item that appears on the plate or platter is meticulously placed with tweezers.

We worked through the night and left the hotel around 5:00am to drive to Erfurt. I was very nervous driving because the meticulously-plated items were resting on the floor of the van, so it was imperative to drive very smoothly. Happily, we made it to the convention center without incident and got our materials set up with time to spare. Everyone was extremely relieved to have this, the first day of our competition, safely delivered to the convention center.

Then, it was all over except for the waiting. We drove back to Gotha for a few hours of sleep (it is disorienting to sleep from 8am until 2pm!). At 3:00pm, Alan and I drove back to Erfurt to attend the awards ceremony and tear down our presentation.

Please note that if you wish to leave comments for the chefs, you may do so on this site. They’ll see everything you send!

Day two in Gotha started mid-morning for us, as we all slept in a little bit to get caught up from the trip. With less than 5 hours of sleep last night, I’m still dragging a little bit, but hope to catch up on sleep in the next day or so.

The weather in Gotha is “perfect for aspic work”, said Rick Potter, team manager. It’s clear and cold; not hot like when the team was here in 2000. It’s cool enough that you want a jacket when you leave to go outside, but any amount of walking makes you want to take the jacket off and enjoy the cool, crisp air.

After a good German breakfast at the hotel (the breakfast included roulades, pork, sausages, pickled onions, potatoes, a green salad, and more (believe it or not – MORE!)), the competitors and team manager (that’s Alan, Greg, and Rick, respectively) got to work organizing our prep while Brian and I ran out to the local market for a variety of last-minute items – roses & baby’s breath, flour, ladles, saffron, a few electronic gadgets to make life easier – and had a great time at the market trying to make these unusual requests understandable to non-English-speakers. Lots of pointing and gesturing. Believe it or not, the easiest thing to communicate was electronic equipment. We had a difficult time figuring out flour (mehl) and chives (schnittlauche) in German, but thanks to our PDAs, wireless connections, and BabelFish, were able to get nearly everything we needed.

After another run or two to the shops (as new items were discovered) – thankfully the shops are within a couple minutes of our preparation area – we got rolling. Brian chopped lots of vegetables and did assorted assistant duties (as assigned) while I managed the electronics including getting pictures from the cameras up on the gallery and writing articles.

Tasks for the chefs today included spending a lot of time poaching vegetables, making croquettes out of various proteins, making crackers for garnish, lots of precision knife-work, made and cut polenta cakes, preparing aspic, and fried off miniature “sausages” wrapped in caul fat.

To answer a question from email (remember that you can comment on any article in this category and we’ll make sure the chefs see everything you send), we cannot reveal the menus we’re using in the competition at this point. The full menus will be revealed after we compete and are judged.

When they participated in the International Culinary Olympics in 2000 (at which the team took a silver medal), Chefs Potter and Neace stayed in the Quality Inn in Gotha and really built a kinship with Chef Thomas Zajaczkowski, who warmly welcomed us when we arrived today. Not at all deterred by the lack of a common language (we’re English-speakers with a tiny smidge of German; Chef Thomas speaks very little English), the team reacquainted and presented gifts that we brought over from the USA for Chef Thomas and his crew. Chef, typically understated, mostly smiled (a lot) as he and his crew accepted the gifts.

We got checked in and situated in our small, comfortable hotel rooms before moving to the preparation area reserved for us by Chef Thomas. There are a few other teams using the hotel as their home base, so space is at a premium. We’ve got a really nice area in which to work, and they let us use their main kitchen as well. Unpacking and examining our materials, we were pleased to note that everything seems to have made the trip without damage.

Afterward, we asked Katja Haja, the front desk manager at the hotel, for a recommendation for a good German restaurant nearby where we could have our first dinner in Germany. She recommended a place close-by and we programmed the destination into our rental van’s GPS and took off on the short trip. We never found the restaurant but ended up, after a few conversations with locals, in a very nice Italian restaurant called Bocelli. The five of us had a cozy table in one corner of the dining room where we enjoyed the food very much. We met a local, Mattias, at the next table who was very interested in our Culinary Olympic story.

We walked back to the car and made the short trip back to the hotel for a quick team meeting to discuss plans for the next day – Brian and I have several errands to run and a few elusive last-minute items to pick up. We also wrote this blog article.

Afterward, it was time for bed, for much-needed rest before the acceleration begins tomorrow! Alan Neace competes on Monday and Greg Skibinski competes on Wednesday.

Stay tuned to this website for frequent updates!