Started a food fight at Canoecopia
Canoecopia was a blast this year. It always is. It’s rated at the largest paddling show in North America. If you haven’t been to it, imagine 24,000 overly keen paddlers wandering the isles checking out the latest gear or taking in one of the countless presentations. Ten theaters filled with 60 to 600 people every hour for two and a half days. It’s amazing. I presented four times and had a packed audience every time. Three talks were on my new book Top 50 Canoe Routes of Ontario but the fourth was as one of the Chefs in the Annual Aluminum Chef Competition. This is where a professional local Chef Joey Dunscombe, camp gourmand Marty Koch, and myself battle it out cooking an appetizer, entrée and dessert in front of an audience of 500 plus. Judges from the audience then choose the winners of each – none of which I’ve yet to win for the three years I’ve participated in the event. It’s not that I haven’t tried – but Marty and Joey are both darn good cooks. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have fun. I spent more time tossing flat bread at the audience, having participants come up to help chop my nuts and slice my onions, sharing the cooking wine, sneaking salt into Marty’s ingredients and being as much Canadian as I possibly could.
Maybe I’ll win next year?
