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Competition in the kitchen

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Salmon Arm's Clayton Beadle is a contestant in Canada's Top Chef competition.

A former Salmon Arm resident will be competing for the title of Canada’s Top Chef in the television program modeled on the American version of the popular reality show, which pits chefs against each other in weekly cooking challenges.

Premiering April 11 on the Food Network, Clayton Beadle, who graduated from Salmon Arm Secondary in 2002, puts his culinary skills to the test against 15 other of the country’s best chefs.

Now a chef at Whistler’s five-star Four Seasons Hotel, Beadle knows the outcome after taping last summer in Toronto, but is sworn to secrecy. What he does not know, however, is the exact content of the show, so he’ll be watching for the first time with a group of friends and fellow chefs next Monday.

“It was nice to be given the opportunity to showcase my talent to the world, to get my five minutes of fame,” says Beadle, who at 26, was the youngest competitor. “It was really interesting to see where I stand against a group of people with a wide range of skills, who have worked with people like Gordon Ramsay, who own restaurants, who have been in this a lot longer than I have.”

As part of his education at SAS, Beadle took the chef training program taught by Alex Varga and also spent time working in local restaurants. He started at the downtown Thai restaurant, then called Poe Thong, and at the now-closed Kelly O’Brien’s, before heading to the culinary program at Vancouver Island University.

“I really like the atmosphere of working in a restaurant, the rush of a busy service, the euphoria you feel after you’ve cooked for 200 people and they all went away happy.”

It was Beadle’s mom, who still lives in Salmon Arm, who saw the ad for the show and  convinced her son to enter. He filled out an online application and sent in a five-minute video, and was thrilled to hear from the show’s producers that he had been chosen.

He says the cameras were intimidating at first, but the challenges are so intense and must be prepared so quickly that he soon forgot about being on-air.

“It’s really producing food to the same standards I do at work, but in much tighter time and you know that your place in the series depends on the results,” he says. “The worst part was standing in front of the judges. That was nerve-racking. No one wants to hear their food sucks.”

The grand prize in the contest is $100,000 and a $30,000 state-of-the-art kitchen — not to mention the title of Canada’s Top Chef.

Beadle says the buzz generated by the show could only help him with future plans.

He is hoping in the immediate future to “cook his way through different countries” including Spain and Italy and then return to the West Coast to open his own restaurant.

“My mom’s trying to get me to open one in Salmon Arm, of course,” he says. “We’ll see.”

Top Chef Canada debuts April 11 at 10 p.m. on the Food Network.

 

Clayton Beadle's Grilled Chicken Lettuce Wraps with Asian Dipping Sauce

•2 chicken breasts

•1 head iceberg lettuce

•3/4 cup soy sauce

•1 tbsp chopped fresh ginger

•1 tbsp chopped shallots or

red onion

•1 clove garlic minced

•3 tbsp chopped cilantro

•1 tsp sesame oil

 

Season chicken with salt and pepper and a little canola oil, not too much salt as the soy sauce is salty. Grill chicken until cooked through. Cut into slices. Combine soy sauce with ginger, garlic, shallots, cilantro and sesame oil. Quarter iceberg and remove stem. Serve grilled chicken with iceburg on the side and a small bowl of the sauce. It’s finger food so wrap chicken in lettuce, dip and enjoy.