Going for the ‘green’ ribbon
Local chefs square off for Iron Horse Chef competition

SideStory: The Palace’s Spinach Salad

Will Nolan, left, of the Palace Restaurant, and Chris Crowl, of the Cosmopolitan, square off during last year’s Iron Horse Chef Competition at the Durango Farmers Market.  The three-round cooking competition returns this year, pitting local chefs against one other in a fast-paced, farm-to-plate event./Photos by Corey Crowl

by Kinsee Morlan

In preparation for the upcoming Durango Iron Horse Chef event, the Palace Restaurant’s new executive chef, Paul Spadora, has been waking up every morning at 4 a.m., meditating for an hour over a piece of freshly cut basil, running 10 miles with sacks of potatoes tied around his ankles then jogging up the La Plata County Courthouse’s three steps where he lifts a plump ripe tomato over his head in a victorious climax when he reaches the top. All the while, “Eye of the Tiger” is blaring through the earbuds of his iPod, of course.

Just kidding.

Spadora does have a title to defend (The Palace’s former chef won last year’s Iron Horse Chef competition), but he’s not the type of guy to work up a sweat. So, has the young chef trained at all for the upcoming cook off?

“Nah, not really,” Spadora says while on a quick break from behind the hot stoves at The Palace. “I’ll just go do what I do.”

The calm and cool Spadora does eventually admit to planning a quick trip down to the Durango Farmers Market, the site of the Iron Horse Chef competition, where he’ll scope out the produce and talk to a few vendors before the big day. He’s only been at The Palace four months now, and he says while the restaurant does use a fair share of local products, he simply hasn’t had time to get out of the kitchen to meet the people who grow the food he ends up putting on his patron’s plates.

And that right there is a big part of what the Durango Iron Horse Chef is all about.

Now in its second season, the three-round cooking competition, which pits local chefs against one other in a fast-paced, farm-to-plate event loosely inspired by a Food Network reality show with a similar name, is co-organized by Colorado State University Extension and Healthy Lifestyles La Plata. It’s a joint effort to connect chefs with farmers and ranchers while promoting the Durango Farmers Market and the local-food scene in general.

“The fourth thing we want to do,” explains Darrin Parmenter, director of CSU Extension La Plata County, “is have a really good time.”

Starting at the Durango Farmer’s Market last Sat., July 25, four Durango chefs – Spadora, Sean Devereauz of Guido’s, Ryan Lowe of The Ore House, and Jason Blankenship of Kennebec Café – had exactly an hour and a half to shop at the market and prepare dishes using their local-food finds plus a secret ingredient – some variety of locally raised meat. When the time limit was up, the chefs presented their plates to four judges. The panel of judges was made up of the meat-product vendor, two Durango celebrities, foodies and/or politicians, and a farmers market patron who was chosen randomly from a fishbowl of entries. Rounds two and three of The Durango Iron Horse Chef event will happen Aug. 15 and Sept. 5, and at each round, the chefs will face a completely different lineup of judges.

“Last year, there was a crowd around each chef while they were cooking for the competition,” Parmenter says. “So, farmers market patrons can go and be right on top of the chef and they can see exactly what they’re doing.”

Aside from picking up tips on how to eat and cook locally and seasonally by watching the pros do it under pressure, Parmenter says he hopes people get the bigger picture. While the local-food movement is gaining momentum, Parmenter agrees with Bayfield grower Todd Anderson, who says he estimates that only about 5 percent of the population currently shops at farmers markets. Parmenter would like to see that change, but he knows a few hurdles stand in the way of spreading the “eat local” message to the masses.

“The challenge with local food is that, yeah, local’s more expensive,” Parmenter says.

Haduk adds, “Part of the problem is that the whole infrastructure is set up to support large-scale agriculture.”

As for the reasons for wanting to spread the local-food love and getting people to spend their extra pennies in the open air of a farmers market rather than the aisles of Wal-Mart, Parmenter says there are plenty.

“We obviously want to reduce food miles,” he says. “At the farmers market, at the most your apple is going to be from 50 miles away. Your mango at the grocery store is probably traveling between 2,000 to 2,500 miles to get from farm to plate.” Parmenter says reducing the number of food miles accomplishes three things. For starters, it supports the local economy, thus fueling the multiplier effect, whereby the money generated locally tends to stay local. “If you buy that vegetable from James Ranch, they are buying their seeds locally and they’re buying their compost locally and those people selling the compost are buying their things locally,” he explains. Secondly, local food – fresh food – is more nutritious. The most nutritious fruits and vegetables you can get are right from your own garden or picked within two days, Parmenter says. “These folks at the farmers market, they harvest on Fridays and sell on Saturdays – it’s as fresh as it gets.”

And, the final reason that fresher is better? “It tastes a hell of a lot better,” he says.

Back at the Palace, where Spadora is not busy training for the Iron Horse Chef competition, the clean-shaven, white-clad chef sticks to his relaxed, worry-free state of mind and only makes vague allusions to what he might bring to the battle aside from his knives.

“I’m just gonna live for the moment,” he laughs. “Cooking’s a living thing, you just have to go day by day … I usually like to have about three different sauces on each plate, and, in the summer, I like it to be fresh and colorful – no demi sauces – just fresh purees of whatever’s at the market that day.”

That fresh, take-what-seasonal-food-you-can-get attitude may just be the recipe for a win. •