Barry Mooney, Vanessa Fiorini; two cooks I want on my side in an Iron Chef fight.

2010 CWC National Exam

Barry with his head tucked in. It was a little weird being on this side of the lense one year later.

Barry's practice run before the exam. Vanessa actually helped out with this recipe so it's only proper I post it here.

Chocolate Raspberry Terrine
Cinnamon Tuile
Hazelnut Teardrop

Zero Hour
One of those moments where the silence is deafening.

Potential CWC's. 3 Hours to cook a blackbox 3-course meal.
Special note to how well beer tastes after that three hours in particular is over...


The only decent shot of Vanessa I have on file.
...her going through the loops of preparing a baguette with me last fall.

Vanessa's little hobby on the side... ....seriously.

So I should apologize for the inexcusable delay in writing a blog entry. June was a good month. Nuttier then brown butter, but well, well worth the experience. July is here. The garden is a rockstar. I have begun to use the herbs, and if I wanted too, I could at this point use the baby leeks, however I have bigger plans for them. Vichyssoise is after all my choice as a final meal, (That cold soup, paired with Malpaque Oyster, Caviar and Creme Fraiche).

Two people aside from me are the focus today.

First, Second Cook, Epic Chef Tournant Barry "do-no-wrong" Mooney very recently completed the national CWC practical black box exam at Humber College. I managed to make it on time for the final plate presentations and to try make him feel uncomfortable; not that already having 4 CMC's looking intently at you as you try to turn 7 perfect sides of a potato is exactly relaxing....

In my humble CWC opinion I felt Barry did awesome. Tight and controlled, he utilized every given opportunity to make the most of his plates and it came out looking sharp. A good day for a really good cook.

Next on the block is a long talked about Pastry Second Cook here at BOHK (Should I make this an initialism or an anagram?) who in my again, humble CWC (with honors) opinion is far gifted beyond her younger age (ahhhh to be not-so-late twenties again...).
Vanessa 'anything can be a cake' Fiorini finally has gotten her act together and formulated a website to showcase her talents. It's unreal what this girl does on her time away from the Royal York. Currently, I am helping Chef Ryan and the Epic Crew engage in a lot of product changes/finessing that will make it's way onto the blog. Heads up!

-Jerek "GO GERMANY!" Bowman.