-Montreal
-Talks with Parisian master Claudien Ainenl at the Scouting Summit in Montreal in attempts to add him to the Feast Fest team in 2012 have come to a shuddering halt, Head Scouter Jim Dall says.
Dall reports that Ainenl will settle for no more than $800,000. FFers had prepared for Ainenl a $550,000 contract to present to him upon the beginning of the next offseason in December.
"Ainenl had given us the impression that he was willing to come to the table and be flexible with his pay amounts," commented Dall. "We weren't prepared for a demand of $800,000. It hit us like a ton of bricks."
Dall said that top-tier chefs such as Lynn Avi, Jim McAllister, and the Mason Duo rake in anywhere from $750,000-$900,000 a year for their participation at Feast Fest, but, "due to his commitments to his restaurant, we assumed he would have less time to practice Americana styles for Feast Fest. Because of this, we placed him in our minds on a lower line of power than a top-tier chef. And, although Ainenl accepted this and did not demand his position with the event be raised, he is demanding a salary amount wherein we would have to give him a higher position to meet his demands."
"We're sort of at a stalemate right now."
Brianna Galen-Ames' negotiations have also fallen apart, as she is unsuccessfully trying to worm her way through the lawbooks of the event to raise the maximum salary from $1,500,000 to $2,000,000.
Dall says, "We just raised the maximum amount from 1 million to 1.5 million a couple weeks ago. We've been through that whole rigmarole. We're not ready to jump back into that again, not this soon."
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