Northern Michigan Chef Showdown Over Local Foods on MyNorth.com

May 4, 2010 - PRLog -- Traverse City, MI--MyNorth.com, the online home of Traverse, Northern Michigan’s Magazine, challenged Northern Michigan chefs from Thompsonville, Traverse City and the Leelanau Peninsula to Petoskey and Walloon Lake to prepare a dish that is made with 95 percent Michigan products. We call it the Chef Showdown: Local Foods. And Northern Michigan’s chefs have responded with gusto.

The rules? Prepare a dish of your choice, savory or sweet, but 90 percent of the ingredients must be either raised, grown or foraged in Northern Michigan and an additional 5 percent must be raised, grown or foraged somewhere in Michigan. Additionally, the chefs agreed to provide our readers with their recipes and list of local ingredients—so the MyNorth audience could shop local and prepare the dishes themselves at home.

With so much goodness coming from so many restaurant kitchens we’re sending MyNorth Media videographer Kris Riley to capture the action in high-definition video. Immediately after they are produced, each Chef Showdown: Local Foods video will be posted on MyNorth.com—accompanied by press releases announcing their posting. (To find the videos on MyNorth.com simply type “Chef Showdown: Local Foods” into the search bar.) Once all the videos are live on the site, we’ll invite our online readers to vote on their favorite recipes and announce the popular vote.

The first MyNorth Chef Showdown video is Crystal Mountain Resort's Executive Chef Darren Hawley, who prepared an exquisitely delicious Smoked Pheasant and Morel Galantine with Pickled Beet and Goat Cheese Gateaux. Consumers can watch this first demonstration of cooking with Northern Michigan’s foods now on MyNorth.com. http://www.mynorth.com/My-North/Video/?vid=3307

Here are the chefs competing in MyNorth.com Chef Showdown: Local Foods:
Eric Nittolo, The Boathouse Restaurant, Old Mission Peninsula
Darren Hawley, Crystal Mountain Resort, Thompsonville
Sam Hybels, Gusto Ristorante, Suttons Bay
Martha Ryan, Martha’s Leelanau Table, Suttons Bay
Randy Chamberlain, Blu, Glen Arbor
John Piombo, Executive Chef, The Homestead Resort , Glen Arbor
Gerald Gramzay, Corporate Chef, Stafford’s, Petoskey
Joseph M. George, Executive Chef, Grand Traverse Resort & Spa, Acme
Phil Murray, Phil’s on Front Street, Traverse City
David Beier, Walloon Lake Inn, Walloon Lake
Chef Jon Eakes, Riverside Inn, Leland
Eric Patterson, Cook’s House, Traverse City
Hannah Bistro, Traverse City
Myles Anton, Trattoria Stella, Traverse City
Guillaume Hazaël-Massieux, Le Becasse, Burdickville

Now in its 30th year, Traverse, Northern Michigan’s Magazine has been a strong supporter of local foods since its beginnings and has a long history of covering what’s in season, what’s made in Michigan and local wines, spirits and beers. And MyNorth Media has published The Cottage Cookbook: Recipes for Summer Up North available in the store on MyNorth.com. http://store.mynorth.com/books/cottage-cookbook.html

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About MyNorth Media, MyNorth.com and Traverse, Northern Michigan’s Magazine:
MyNorth Media, founded as Prism Publications Inc., 30 years ago by Deborah Wyatt Fellows, publishes MyNorth.com, Traverse, Northern Michigan's Magazine, Northern Home & Cottage, MyNorth Vacation Guide and MyNorth Wedding, in addition to several other print and online publications. Traverse Magazine and its staff have won more than a dozen national and international awards for excellence, including a 2008 silver award for general excellence from the City and Regional Magazine Association and the 2007 “Magazine of the Year" award from the International Regional Magazine Association. The privately held company is headquartered in Traverse City, Michigan. For more information, visit MyNorth.com or call (231) 941-8174.

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