Pear Excellence 2009

Pear Excellence is a competition organized by the Pear Bureau Northwest:

"[They] scoured the nation's culinary schools in search of students whose fresh pear recipes tantalized its taste buds, and five regional semi-finalists were selected to compete for a grand prize of $2,500 on May 5th at The Chef's House in Toronto!"

Today, we were invited as "foodies" to attend the final judging event of Pear Excellence: The 2009 Canadian Culinary Student Competition at The Chef's House. However, Howard was called for jury duty, so I brought along a friend from work to go with me. It was a good thing that my friend likes pears! There was pear punch, pear centerpieces, pear gift bags, and we sampled the competing pear dishes. I accidently grabbed the wrong camera today on my way out, so I'm very sorry for the fuzzy photos!

Above: Table for us!

Each student presented their recipe to a panel of judges: Rita DeMontis (Food and Lifestyle Editor, Toronto Sun), John Higgins (Director, George Brown University), Peter Dewar (Faculty, Nova Scotia Culinary College), and Sal Battaglia (Fresh First Produce & President, Ontario Produce Marketing Association). The judges would then provide comments to the students. After all five dishes were tasted, the judges tallied up the marks. *Drum Roll*

Above: Table for the panel of judges.

Congratulations to Rose Prost-Hiebert! Her pear ginger cheesecake recipe won her the grand prize! She also won the People's Choice Award - voted by us guests! Her cheesecake was so delicious that I can't wait to try making it myself!

Grand Prize: Pear Ginger Cheesecake
Ontario: Rose Prost-Hiebert, Elliott House Restaurant and Chef School

Finalist: Perfectly “Peared" Pizza
Prairies: Juli McCue, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology

Finalist: Candied Pear Balls
Maritimes: Tara Fleet, New Brunswick Community College

Finalist: Pear and Sausage Risotto
Quebec: Michael Tozzi, College LaSalle

Jeremy Webber of Culinary Institute of Vancouver Island, VIU entered his Grilled Pear and Ginger Soufflé with Brandied Pear Chips. We don't have a photo of Jeremy's pear creation, his soufflé was only served to the judges.

Above left: We were given gift bags on the way out. Everyone received a pear, a magnet, a pen, and a pear plush toy.
Above right: Recipes and ideas about pears were also included. You can find lots of pear recipes on the USA Pear website as well.

Above left: Here is the pear packaged in a "reusable pear packer!" How interesting!
Above right: I did use their Check the Neck for Ripeness™ technique, I think it was ripe, so I ate it! This pear smelled and tasted like the pears grown in our backyard, but it had a different texture that I've never tried before!

Thank you to Cristie Mather from Pear Bureau Northwest for the invitation! We had a fun time and all the recipes were wonderful! Congratulations to all the finalists!

Pear and Roxy are now good friends. For the winning recipes, please visit USA Pears here.