DECEMBER 22, 2011 ISSUE
Fire on the Rock One of Four Battles in 2012 Statewide Competition
Chef Applications Due December 31
Chetola Resort’s winning team for Fire On the Rock 2011: Chef Michael Barbato, Hunter Hallmark and Colin Hendricks. Chefs from Chetola, Crippen’s and Knife and Fork will kick off the 2012 Fire on the Rock with a three-way throwdown.The seventh annual Fire on the Rock will begin January 24 and 25, 2012, at Crippen’s Country Inn & Restaurant in Blowing Rock. The 2012 competition, however, will for the first time be one of four battles in the inaugural statewide “Got to be NC” Competition Dining Series.
Fire on the Rock is a single elimination bracket series of 15 dinners where two of 16 chefs from Watauga, Ashe, Avery, Caldwell and Wilkes counties compete against each other in each dinner, and the winner advances to the next round.
Chefs must build the courses around a “secret” North Carolina ingredient selected by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture (NCDA), which is revealed less than an hour before the chefs start to prepare the night’s meal.
Putting a twist on the “Iron Chef”-style format, paying guests get to sample each of the six courses in a blind tasting alongside a panel of culinary and celebrity judges, and votes from the public and the judges decide the winner.
The final showdown dinner between the top two chefs will take place at Crippen’s Country Inn & Restaurant during the Blue Ridge Wine and Food Festival on Wednesday, April 11, 2012.
Fire on the Rock is the brainchild of Blowing Rock’s Jimmy Crippen, who has been tapped to produce and emcee the statewide series, according to a press release.
Sponsored by the N.C. Department of Agriculture (NCDA) and Pate Dawson Company/Southern Foods, the “Got to be NC” competition strives to promote local North Carolina ingredients and talented chefs from across the state.
Agriculture is the No. 1 industry in the state, and tourism is No. 2, Crippen said. “I can’t think of a better way [than] putting those two together to provide entertainment that encompasses them.”
“The concept fits in well with our established programs,” said Tim Parrish, NCDA marketing specialist, in a press release. “It’s a great way to showcase fresh local product and the chefs that prepare it.”
Malcom “Mac” Sullivan, CEO of Pate Dawson Company, participated in Fire on the Rock last year.
“We saw incredible potential at last year’s Fire on the Rock,” Sullivan said in the press release. “We wanted to be a part of that energy and spread it across the state. These events will celebrate North Carolina talent AND ingredients. We can’t wait to get started.”
“It’s a very big project, kind of scary, but to me scary is good; it means you’re doing something good,” Crippen said. “The best part is I get to taste dishes of 64 different chefs.”
Fire on the Rock will be one of the four battles in the statewide competition, which will end October 1, 2012.
The other battles are Fire on the Dock in Wilmington; Fire in the Triangle, which encompasses Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill; and Fire in the Triad, which is comprised of Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem.
“I’m so proud of our chefs and the spark they started with this competition,” Crippen said. “The chef battles super-charge the winter season here in Blowing Rock.”
In a change from previous competitions, there will be no stage show this year for the Fire on the Rock finals. Crippen said the public clamored to taste those final dishes, so they restructured the last challenges to be dinner battles, just like the preliminaries were in previous seasons.
Also, reservations will be required to attend the battles, as in years before, but this year it will be prepaid reservations, he said.
Fire on the Rock will include a couple of other new aspects this year that, if successful, will be implemented in the whole series, Crippen said.
Digital voting will allow guests to vote from their iPhone, Android or Blackberry, and this will help save time tallying votes at the end, he said.
An audio-visual aspect will be screens set up in the restaurants to show chef interviews and some promotional clips.
“We’re bringing together the stage show and preliminaries,” he said.
The 2012 Fire on the Rock will kick off with a champions’ battle. Last year’s winner, Michael Barbato of Chetola, will go up against the Western North Carolina Challenge winner, Nathan Allen of Knife and Fork in Spruce Pine.
The twist in it is that because Allen tied with Crippen’s own Chef Stan Chamberlain for third place in Best Dish NC competition, it will be a “three-way throwdown,” Crippen said: Chamberlain will compete as well.
“Each chef gets two courses, and anything goes,” he said.
Local restaurant owners or chefs can enter Fire on the Rock, and each applicant must field a team of three. Applications are due by December 31.
The public is encouraged to come to each event. Tickets are $49 each, and beverages and tip are not included. Tickets will soon be available at www.crippens.com.
For more information, to see the rules or to apply, download the forms available online by clicking to www.fireontherock.com or calling 828-265-9075.
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