As this year’s leader
of Feast Fest’s Scouting
Department, allow me first to
thank you for attending this
spectacular culinary event.
As you may or may not know, the scouting department of Feast Fest is responsible for mediating and overseeing the contracts of the chefs that are a part of Feast Fest, in addition to signing new chefs. Last year, Feast Fest had 56 wonderful chefs. This year, we enter Feast Fest 2010 with 57, but after quite a rocky offseason. Five chefs left, six joined, and one chef announced she would be leaving Feast Fest after this year’s event, leaving a rather gaping hole for us to fill in the next offseason. On a positive note, however, we did sign Sandi & Parker Mason back on to their Head Chef spots. After their original contracts expired on January 1, they were successfully redrafted and re-signed on February 23 (in order to accomplish this, one of our scouters had to make an unscheduled trip to Vancouver, but it was worth it nonetheless to sustain the Masons’ presence at Feast Fest).
In August, we asked the Masons how they would feel about introducing current Head Sous-Chef Jim McAllister into a Head Chef position, along with the Masons, for Feast Fest 2011. They said they would be ecstatic to bring Jim up to the head chef’s table, and on August 27 his contract was modified such that this will be his final year as Head Sous-Chef and so that he will go to the Head Chef’s Table in 2011. In this process, several chefs will move up a position—Lynn Avi will take over Jim’s former position, and so on. For example, this is how the upper tiers of power in Feast Fest look now:
The Masons
|
Jim McAllister
/ \
Lynn Avi Joe Pasik
\ /
Jan Stephan Jacqueline Pierce Lisa Choi other chefs…
And here is how it will look next year:
The Masons & Jim McAllister
|
Lynn Avi
/ \
Jan Stephan Joe Pasik
\ /
Jacqueline Pierce Lisa Choi Stephen Dreim other chefs…
and so on.
McAllister says he is “elated” to be moving up to the Head Chefs’ table, and Avi says she will be overjoyed to take on McAllister’s former spot. Jan Stephan, slated to fill Avi’s spot, will earn his first spot of major authority in Feast Fest, of which he says, “I cannot wait to be in such a major position in this event in 2011.” Feast Fest XVII will see some major changes in the chain of power, but, everyone hopes, for the better.
Other offseason developments included the stunning announcement of October 16 that Brianna Galen Ames, the youngest chef of the event, one year younger than Parker, would be leaving Feast Fest after 2010. Ames, who joined in 2007 at age 12, said she will be moving to Europe in the summer and that she will likely be unable to attend Feast Fest, but she said that her departure from the event is uncertain. “I am only making this announcement just in case I do leave, so the scouters can make the appropriate arrangements,” Ames said.
Other departures from Feast Fest included D.A. Cook, a 6 year veteran of the event, Mei Okoworth, a Japanese chef whose brother will remain in the event, Alsace Jacquairaiene, a French chef who joined in 2009 and only was part of the event for one year, and Hillary Wilkin and Zackary Livensworth, who both joined in 2008. However, we tacked on five brilliant chefs to fill their spots and added a 6th to up 2010’s chef count to 57, up from last year’s 56 Our goal is to add more and more chefs to the event every year, and, though we added less than some years, we still accomplished this goal for 2010.
So, the faces you will see at Feast Fest will be some new, some old, but they will join together perfectly to create a wonderful, harmonious Thanksgiving meal that everyone will devour with delight.
Happy Holidays,
Jim Dall
Feast Fest Head Scouter
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