98.8 at Edelyn

-Punta Gorda, Fla.
-The FF chefs were paving the way for a fantastic performance all night long at Edelyn Cooking Arena and got rewarded for this with a 98.8 NCA score, the highest of the 2011 exhibitional season. The MVC for Edelyn was Lisa Choi, who contributed 47 NCA points. It's the first MVC she's received at either an actual Feast Fest or an exhibition since 2008. "She [Choi] was in the groove all night long and really slammed it home for an MVC," commented Lynn Avi.

Aleck Monde, whose debut performance was highly anticipated, actually made the leaderboard in terms of NCA points, coming in fourth with 41.

"I loved seeing him out there tonight, he performed even better than I thought he would," said his father, Marc Monde, who was a popular FF chef from 1995 to 2004.

"I do admit now I had a heck of a lot of nerves beforehand!" Monde commented. "But there was something, something that surged through me when I took to the floor that melted my jitters and just made me feel like I could perform naturally."

And that's exactly what Monde did, garnering high praise from his fellow chefs, especially the "Original 7" chefs whose impressions were most vital to him.

The crowd remained throughout the night at Edelyn, dispersing only after the announcement of the official score. "They stayed all night long, on Halloween night, from 7 to Midnight they were in their seats, they loved every minute of it," said a grateful Joe Pasik. "Awesome crowd we had tonight."

This Halloween exhibition is the final of the year before Thanksgiving and will likely set the tone for Feast Fest on November 24th. "We had perfect chemistry tonight," gushed Jim McAllister. "You could feel everything was going the right way. Unlike back in Morro Bay on October 16th when we were messing up everything we came into contact with. I was awfully afraid that would carry over into tonight. But no, not at all, this was one of the best exhibitional performances I think we've ever had, and, heck, if we can carry this over to Feast Fest and bump up our performance levels just a bit, we might be able to get that coveted 99 rating."

McAllister's comments are statistically plausible. In ten of the last twelve years, the score of Feast Fest has been within 0.5 higher or lower of the score of the final exhibition.