Behind the scenes at Food Network Challenge: part 2

June 18th, 2008

Filed Under Food Finds, Hawaii TV, Hollywood in Hawaii |

When they near the end of the challenge they start doing some pick up lines which is when you hear them say things like “competitors you have 1 hour left” or “get your proteins out of the imu” well after the proteins have been taken out. People began showing up in droves and sat in all of the chairs. Wimps! We were good and red and we’d only been there 2 hours at the time things peaked at their fever pitch. As time winded down, all of the chefs were scrambling to make things look just right for the judges. With about 3 minutes left, Bill Yosses decides to whip out a chainsaw to present his drink or some aspect of his dish in an ice sculpture and his blade broke so that shot that idea! (They later had us “react” to his blade breaking as well as looking forward like we were watching the chefs when no one was up there at the time and clapping and getting audience shots. Ooh we were so big time) Regardless, everyone finished on time though technically they had an extra 20 seconds. We started the countdown and one of the producers ran in front of the camera to grab something and we had to stop. Then when they got situated, we began the 5 second countdown again. Everyone cheered wildly and were encouraged to be boisterous and loud. The chefs shook hands and hugged and were glad standing over boiling pots in 100+ degree heat was done. Bev and Sam were at his kitchen resting when he motioned us up to his kitchen. Ooh we felt so privileged going past the ropes! LOL He introduced us to Bev who was very nice and we all chit chatted. Then Keegan saunters up to all of us for an interview for the crowd. (See above pic)

He spoke to Sam about the dishes he made and said the squid luau was his mom’s recipe. He got a little choked up as he had lost his mom not too long before that. Keegan asked him about his custard cake and he composed himself and apologized but no one minded. Anyone who has ever been in the presence of a chef knows that their love of cooking goes deep, especially with family. Then it was Bev’s turn and Sam sat down and talked with us and showed us his knives that had his name on it. When they were done, he said “you kids better get in the shade and I’ll get these ready for the judges.” The first plates taken immediately after the challenge is over are for the cameras.

While on the Challenge it all looks like the judges give everything a taste, write down their stuff and within 30 minutes they crown the victor (see left), I assure you that’s not how it goes, at least not at ours. They move each table to a location so it can be filmed and they have “fly wranglers” waving ti leaves over the tables. Let’s just say, they do an okay job of keeping the buggers off of the food initially. But when they’re filming of course they can’t have people waving flies off so they had to wave, quickly tape and wave again. This took about 45 minutes. When they were moving Tim Love’s table back to the front, we overheard one of the people say “did you see how many flies were on that goat?” Now we’d been promised all day that we were all going to get to taste this stuff and we weren’t up eating food that flies had already tried to make a buffet of. My thought is since they gave everyone copies of the recipes that they probably made more in the kitchens but still since we weren’t sure, we didn’t go there. There was a guy in the audience with an ukulele and he sang “I Will Remember You” to which everyone sang along. Then we found out it was Bev’s birthday so he played and we all sang Happy Birthday. It was a nice way to pass the time.

After Sam came back from the judges, he rested a bit and then came over and sat with us. He had me turn off his microphone so we could gab without the sound man hearing. He was tired, hot and anxious. We probably had about 20 minutes with him before people started asking for autographs and pictures. I couldn’t help but think how different it would’ve been a mere 3 days prior before we all knew each other and became fast friends. We would’ve been one of those people but instead I had chef groupies asking me if I was his daughter! He was very gracious with each of them. He introduced us to friends of his like judge Alan Wong and a kahuna, then competitor Tim Love and others who came to wish him well. He kept saying “these are my friends” when he introduced us…he was very sweet. By the time they were ready to announce the winner, 3 hours had passed and everyone was just tired. They had handed out yellow plumeria leis for everyone to wear and asked that we all flip our chairs around to face the other stage. We went from front row to back and people offered to switch with us but we wanted others to have a shot at being that close.

Bev Gannon came in second place, a nice birthday gift. The winner and recipient of a $10,000 check was Sam Choy. (They didn’t announce scores so we don’t know who was 3rd and 4th) Sam was so happy and so emotional. He cried and thanked everyone and you could tell it meant the world to him. One thing we learned very quickly about him was his passion for cooking runs very deep. His biggest joy is watching people eat his creations and seeing the look of satisfaction on their faces. He gets the biggest smile and you can almost see his heart overflow. It is inspiring to see someone that content with something they love so much. We stood back and let him get interviewed and people take pics and get autographs just watching him enjoy his moment. Then he saw us and we hugged him and he thanked us for being there to support him and wanted a picture of us all together. So we posed with the check and he called us his good luck charms. Like I dork, I welled up because we knew what this meant to him. The producer said they were setting his table up and you could tell he just wanted to go home. We told him we were going back to the house and hugged him goodbye. I framed the art print I made of his beautiful table and sent it to him and he has it hanging in his home. It was a wonderful day and one we will always remember.

The last airing of this Challenge is today at 12pm noon. (Check local listings)

If you’d like to make Sam’s $10,000 recipes, click here to perk up your next luau!

Comments

2 Comments so far

Behind the scenes at Food Network Challenge: Part 1 : True Aloha on June 20, 2008 1:57 pm
[...] Click here to read part 2! [...]
skeet on July 1, 2008 1:00 am
Oh, I’m sooooooo jealous, but what a shame about the flies. How dare they sully food from SamChoy! Hrrrrumph! What a waste!