Inside Peek: Chef Challenge Central

Thought we would spark a little excitement for our Inca Trail Chef Challenge by showing you a glimpse of the Crossroads Barn, where it will all go down. Can't you just picture the grills fired up and hear the excited frenzy of activity as chefs slice, dice and perfect their signature dish in hopes of winning it all? Come January 10th, three finalists will duke it out at Firestone's majestic Los Olivos property in Santa Ynez, for an esteemed panel of judges. Who will prevail? Which chef will take on the adventure of a lifetime? The countdown is on!

Pathfinder Chef Challenge Spotlights Pt. 3

With just under a month to go, the incredible chefs just keep rolling in. Here's a quick look at some of the new entrants into the Chef Challenge, and few older videos that aren't to be missed. Just think, if you're the lucky winner who ends up on the Inca Trail, one of these fine chefs will be preparing you amazing meals all the way to Machu Picchu!

Our most recent video features Chef Dean Smith showing off some delicious looking pad thai: an impressive dish to prepare while camping at night in the great outdoors at Deer Camp, in Spring City, Utah.

Next up is Scott Beale; chef, inventor, and owner of Saratoga Springs' Grey Gelding Bistro. In this video, Chef Scott uses his patented flexible baking mold to prepare a lovely baked shrimp cake with a Peruvian red chile sauce. Throw in a glass of Discoveries Chardonnay, and it sounds to us like a meal fit for the trail!

In addition to having logged kitchen time in Tuscany and Napa, Will Bradof is a veteran of many of Jackson Hole, Wyoming's finest establishments, including Trio, the local bistro which he currently co-owns with Chef Paul Wireman, a man who knows a thing or two about tubers. Also hailing from Jackson Hole is Chef Joel Tate of Rendezvous Bistro, who'd love nothing more than to discover and be discovered.

Remember, it's not to late to get into the action. Chef Dean entered just five days ago and is already in the top ten videos and looking at a trip to Santa Barbara to participate in the final Chef showdown! So if you or anyone you know is a chef, or just loves to cook, why not start filming! If you've got 60 seconds and a built in camera on your phone, you can record a video that might get you all to way to Machu Picchu!

Pathfinder Chef Challenge Spotlights Pt. 2

With all the great videos coming in from chefs all across the country hoping for a chance to cook for our lucky Pathfinder along the Inca Trail, we thought we'd take a moment to give you a quick rundown of the competition.

Scott Sachs is a San Francisco-based chef and caterer who, though he may have trouble passing for Harry Potter, and struggles a bit with certain Peruvian-lake pronunciations, has no such difficulties when it comes to turning an ordinary lump of dough into an incredible looking pizza. And as great as it looks in the video, just imagine how that would taste after a long day of hiking! Also, be sure to check out the Fresh Foods column Scott writes for the SF Examiner.

Chef Aimee is a recent culinary school graduate ready to put her newfound knowledge to good use out on the trail. Check out her incendiary video to see her magically transform some potatoes, chicken, and peppers into a traditional Peruvian Causa Rellena!

William Pence may not be from Peru, but his boss sure is. And after hearing all about the many wonders of Peruvian cuisine from Blanca Fauble, owner of Carvers Steak and Chops in Dayton, Ohio, Executive Chef Pence did what any adventurous chef would have done; he tried it out for himself, incorporating Peruvian flourishes into his cooking. Perhaps, then, trying out some of these new flavors while hiking the Inca Trail is just the next step in the process...

Michael Kelly is a chef at Seattle's La Dolce Vita, where they like to add a bit of Northwestern flair to their traditional Italian menu by using plenty of fresh, local ingredients. If he's picked as our Guest Chef, he'll have plenty of amazing local ingredients to cook with, but they sure won't be of the Seattle variety.

A Rough Guide to Buckwheat Molasses Bars

I suppose one of the advantages of checkout lines that stretch clear to the back of the store is that you become rather well acquainted with the inventory of the aisle in which you must wait. On a recent grocery run, I stood patiently with my scant 10-items-or-less shopping basket, only enduring a delay so long for grocery so little because a good half of my haul was bulk items, and I can only assume that they'd have been disposed of if found abandoned beneath the bread display. Bravely, I resisted the urge to make the wait feel worthwhile by indulging in rampant impulse buys. There was, however, one particular treat which caught my attention: a raw buckwheat energy bar of some sort, notable mainly for the the combination of the words raw and buckwheat. I was, you see, previously unaware that the buckwheat groats I had stashed away at home were edible in their raw state. I'm hardly a raw foodist, but we Firestone folk tend to be curious and adventurous eaters, and I found myself inspired to replicate the buckwheat bars on my own.

Fortunately, homemade granola-type bars are one of those remarkably robust and endlessly variable creations which demand, rather than a proper recipe, only a very general technique and which, once you see how effortless and customizable they are, will become an indispensable addition to your culinary arsenal. Say, for instance, you want to whip up some raw buckwheat energy bars on the fly? Totally doable. Here's the rundown:

Basically, you're just getting a bunch of pebble-sized or smaller pieces of food to stick together with a sweet, sticky, syrupy concoction. For the dry ingredients, I went with roughly equal parts buckwheat, toasted oats, and sunflower seeds, and then some sesame seeds (about a quarter as much as the other dry ingredients). My syrup was about three parts honey, three parts molasses, two parts peanut butter, and one part neutral oil (vegetable or the like). These are very rough estimates. Then, simply combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and heat the wet ingredients to a gentle simmer in a saucepan. Once it's hot and mixed, pour over the dry ingredients, stir until there are no dry patches, and then spread out on a baking sheet or casserole dish, and refrigerate until cool! Easy peasy, fresh and breezy. 

But the beauty, again, is the flexibility. You just want to keep the ratio at about 3 parts dry to 1 part wet. I really like molasses, so I've used quite a bit of that, but anything in the greater sugar family should do it; honey, agave nectar, maple syrup, corn syrup, brown sugar (when combined with liquids), etc. You can also include pureed dates or prunes, or  more nut butters, to cut down on the sugar a bit. The dry ingredients are the real fun part. Just make sure that they're in tiny little pieces, and if you'd like, toast them a bit by cooking over medium heat in a dry pan until fragrant. Some things to try:

Nuts/seeds
peanuts, almonds, cashews, pecans, sunflower, pumpkin, flax seeds...

Dried fruit
apricot, cranberries, raisins, cherries, pear..

Rolled or flaked grains (Often available in bulk sections)
oat, barley, rye, quinoa...

Etc
chocolate chips, crystalized ginger, orange peel, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves...use your imagination!

If, however, you're more of the "real recipe" type, here are some good looking ones to check out. I imagine these would make great snacks for anyone planning a nice long hike. Perhaps in some exotic locale? Hmmm....

Pathfinder Chef Challenge Spotlights Pt. 1

With all the great videos coming in from chefs all across the country hoping for a chance to cook for our lucky Pathfinder along the Inca Trail, we thought we'd take a moment to give you a quick rundown of the competition.

Chef John Taus is the executive chef at Philadelphia's Snackbar restaurant, where the portions are small (just don't call them tapas, this is all-American), but irresistibly snackable. In the rustic/gourmet spirit of our trip, John keeps it down-home but high-class with menu items like brown butter popcorn, fried pig trotters with jalapeno cheese grits, and Peanut Butter Semifreddo with grape compote. You can expect to have plenty of energy on the trail if he's our winner, as Chef Taus plans on preparing some jerkies and smoked meats to snack on as we hike!

Join Chef Michael Fahey, a 30 year culinary veteran, along the Appalachian Trailup on the Blue Ridge Mountains as he whips up a very special combination of rice, shrimp, spices, snails, and the secret ingredient: beautiful mountain air! There'll certainly be plenty of that of that along the Inca Trail. No stranger to the great outdoors, Chef Fahey is also the author of Cooking American Style, Up on Cedar Mountain, "a collection of recipes and poetry from an American chef, inspired by living in an American rain forest in the southern highlands of the Appalachian Mountains."

Fish doesn't get much fresher than the Black Drum Chef Jay Norris pulls in off the side of his kayak in  in our most action-packed video yet.  Once he's back ashore in Ponte Vedre, Florida (though still outside, of course), you can watch as Jay assemble an absolutely gorgeous dish with his catch, paired with Firestone's 2007 Riesling.

Be sure to check out all the great chefs to see who might be cooking for you if you're our lucky winner, and stay tuned for more chef spotlights!

Pathfinder Chef Challenge Spotlight: Patricia Zadony

Patricia is one of the many fantastic chefs we met at the Chicago Gourmet festival this year. Her life on the family farm was an early inspiration for attending culinary school, leading her to the President's List at Le Cordon Bleu and a successful career as a personal chef and volunteer with Common Threads, Chef Art Smith's culinary education charity for children. Her love for fresh and unique vegetables, not to mention travel and adventure, will certainly come in handy if she finds herself out there on the Inca Trail, whipping up amazing trail-ready dishes with fresh Peruvian produce! Best of luck, Patricia! To watch all of the competing chef videos, check out our You Tube page.

Pathfinder Chef Challenge Spotlight: Tim Kirker

Though the French were the fourth largest group of immigrants to Peru (thanks wikipedia!), and both French and Peruvian cuisine are among the world's best, I’m not sure if French-Peruvian cuisine has really taken hold internationally. But depending on how thing shape up for Tim Kirker, he could end up as the ambassador of a new culinary movement. The head chef of Bistro Zinc on State Street in Chicago’s beautiful Near North Side, Kirker is a master of traditional French cuisine the likes of croque monsieur, escargot, profiteroles, and assiette de charcuterie. But, no stranger to the outdoors, he's also "done quite a bit of hiking and biking cooking in the outback," not to mention preparing straight-from-the-river fish over an open campfire in Alaska. With those kind of Top Chef meets Man vs Wild credentials, can the Brandade Stuffed Rocoto Pepper, or Ceviche Confit be far off? Check out all the great chef videos at our YouTube page.

If you’d like a chance to perfect your own Peruvian hybrid cuisine, make a 60-second of yourself showing why you should be our guest chef, and go here to upload it and learn more about the contest! And if you're not a chef, you can enter to be the lucky Pathfinder for which our winning chef will be whipping up those exquisite meals! Enter here.

Sending off Summer in Style

As the light fades on September and the leaves begin to show their first signs of color, we should all take a little time to pause, reflect, and bask in the summer’s many wonders while we still can. Although I suppose “many wonders,” is just my way of saying “many strawberries.” And then, in that case, “bask in” must just mean eat. I guess what I’m getting at is that time is running out to enjoy those gorgeous glowing red orbs of sweet juicy succulence and that this is our last chance to eat as many as we possibly can before they disappear from our collective gardens and farm stands only to be curiously replaced by rows of the bland Stepford Strawberries which the fall and winter meekly try to pass off as the real deal. And since we’re doing this all in the name of summer, and we’ve made clear our favorite way to temper the summer’s accompanying heat, might I suggest enjoying these precious remaining berries atop a bed of vanilla ice cream? And being the classy folks we are here at Firestone, the celebrants of joie de vivre and revelers in all of life’s finest, we’re naturally interested in transforming a combo as classically elegant as berries ‘n’ cream into something truly majestic. My preferred addition? A light drizzle of reduced balsamic. While spinach salad may be the venue where strawberries and vinegar were first introduced, a cool scoop of vanilla ice cream turns out to be an unexpectedly perfect setting for the budding romance between these two sweetly acidic delights. It’s a fitting send-off to the sunniest of seasons, and it couldn’t be much easier. Just simmer some balsamic vinegar for fifteen minutes or so and let it cool. Then, chop some berries, scoop some ‘scream, and assemble it all into a sophisticated sundae. If you’re thinking, “Wait. This is crazy. Balsamic vinegar? In a dessert? Now I’ve heard everything.” then perhaps some of the recipes below (presumably by actual chefs, with degrees and stuff) will convince you.

(If, however, you are an actual chef, totally unimpressed, thinking this is amateur hour, and that you could whip up a way classier dessert while, oh I don’t know, hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, well then, frankly, we’d like very much to take you up on that. Check out the contest here and show us what you (and your signature dishes) are made of. )

The Tradish
The Marinater
The Everything at Once

And come to think of it, it would be doing summer a disservice if we didn't accompany this fine dessert with a nice glass of wine. Might we suggest a Firestone?