-Punta Gorda, Fla.
-Feast Fest's worst October performance at Edelyn Cooking Arena in eight years came on the heels of an accident on the cooking floor that delayed the start of the official cooking portion to 8:53 p.m. and led to DigIn! at an even later-than-expected 1:12 a.m. and the final score announcement of 90.9 at 1:46 a.m.
It was the first time ever since Feast Fest began visiting Edelyn twice a year that their January performance outweighed their October or November effort; their visit here on Jan. 21 garnered a 92.1 mark.
The 90.9 figure is worse than only an 88.4 mark achieved here on Nov. 2, 2005.
"We did have trouble here tonight," Acting Head Chef Jim McAllister said. "However, unlike most years, this is not our final exhibition before Thanksgiving, so we do have a chance to remedy this." In years prior, the final exhibition of the season would be held at Edelyn. This year, there is still one exhibition remaining, in Morro Bay, Ca. And McAllister's comment was appropriate--while Edelyn errors are rare, the chefs have typically fumbled the second-to-last exhibition before the Big Day, for reasons not entirely known.
But then again, maybe the chefs shouldn't feel so good about going to Morro Bay for the last exhibition, as the cooking venue there has been nothing short of a house of horrors for them. They cook in the Central California coast town this Sunday, Nov. 3.
Jim McAllister led the initial effort with 10 NCA points and a quadruple flip in the opening moments, and wound up with a personal-best-in-exhibitions 65 NCA points.
But his charges lagged behind. The second point finisher, Keith Wholehreh, sagged onto the board with a mere 29 points. Joe Pasik finished with 26, Alizone Jahswheich with 24, Lisa Choi with 21, and Jan Stephan, Andruw Stephan, and Tony Ruscoso with 20, rounding out the leaderboard.
The individual scores for the turkey suffered, as the birds became dry during the two-hour delay before the 9 p.m. start. The turkeys garnered a mark of 91.1, their lowest ever at Edelyn. The highest individual food score was a measly 96.3, for mashed potatoes. The average individual food score was 92.5. The lowest mark was for a usually nonchalant and undemanding Feast Fest food--the pie, which was rated a crushing 81.1. Not that it was unexpected, however; of 12 pies made for the event, seven--more than half--burned.
"The pies were tended to as they are normally and were not left in the ovens for a long amount of time, so we are powerless to speculate at this point as to why they would have burned through," McAllister said.
Some pointed fingers at Lynn Avi, who ruled out coming to Punta Gorda after giving birth only several days ago. But this was one of Feast Fest's classic flops, an exhibition that was headed for disaster and that would never have had its course righted.
"The delay rattled us, no doubt. And we have to get over the fact that we let delays like this one rattle us," Jan Stephan said.
Jim McAllister was awarded the MVP easily in a 10-0 vote by critics, but, really, nobody wanted to take credit for this awful excuse for an exhibition.
"Our love affair with Edelyn ended tonight," McAllister said. "We have to go into Morro on Sunday and hope we can clean things up so that we don't have a bad score hanging over our heads before Thanksgiving."
FF Wire Service
-Feast Fest's worst October performance at Edelyn Cooking Arena in eight years came on the heels of an accident on the cooking floor that delayed the start of the official cooking portion to 8:53 p.m. and led to DigIn! at an even later-than-expected 1:12 a.m. and the final score announcement of 90.9 at 1:46 a.m.
It was the first time ever since Feast Fest began visiting Edelyn twice a year that their January performance outweighed their October or November effort; their visit here on Jan. 21 garnered a 92.1 mark.
The 90.9 figure is worse than only an 88.4 mark achieved here on Nov. 2, 2005.
"We did have trouble here tonight," Acting Head Chef Jim McAllister said. "However, unlike most years, this is not our final exhibition before Thanksgiving, so we do have a chance to remedy this." In years prior, the final exhibition of the season would be held at Edelyn. This year, there is still one exhibition remaining, in Morro Bay, Ca. And McAllister's comment was appropriate--while Edelyn errors are rare, the chefs have typically fumbled the second-to-last exhibition before the Big Day, for reasons not entirely known.
But then again, maybe the chefs shouldn't feel so good about going to Morro Bay for the last exhibition, as the cooking venue there has been nothing short of a house of horrors for them. They cook in the Central California coast town this Sunday, Nov. 3.
Jim McAllister led the initial effort with 10 NCA points and a quadruple flip in the opening moments, and wound up with a personal-best-in-exhibitions 65 NCA points.
But his charges lagged behind. The second point finisher, Keith Wholehreh, sagged onto the board with a mere 29 points. Joe Pasik finished with 26, Alizone Jahswheich with 24, Lisa Choi with 21, and Jan Stephan, Andruw Stephan, and Tony Ruscoso with 20, rounding out the leaderboard.
The individual scores for the turkey suffered, as the birds became dry during the two-hour delay before the 9 p.m. start. The turkeys garnered a mark of 91.1, their lowest ever at Edelyn. The highest individual food score was a measly 96.3, for mashed potatoes. The average individual food score was 92.5. The lowest mark was for a usually nonchalant and undemanding Feast Fest food--the pie, which was rated a crushing 81.1. Not that it was unexpected, however; of 12 pies made for the event, seven--more than half--burned.
"The pies were tended to as they are normally and were not left in the ovens for a long amount of time, so we are powerless to speculate at this point as to why they would have burned through," McAllister said.
Some pointed fingers at Lynn Avi, who ruled out coming to Punta Gorda after giving birth only several days ago. But this was one of Feast Fest's classic flops, an exhibition that was headed for disaster and that would never have had its course righted.
"The delay rattled us, no doubt. And we have to get over the fact that we let delays like this one rattle us," Jan Stephan said.
Jim McAllister was awarded the MVP easily in a 10-0 vote by critics, but, really, nobody wanted to take credit for this awful excuse for an exhibition.
"Our love affair with Edelyn ended tonight," McAllister said. "We have to go into Morro on Sunday and hope we can clean things up so that we don't have a bad score hanging over our heads before Thanksgiving."
FF Wire Service
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