On Wednesday, I had the privilege of judging Nashua Crossings’ version of Iron Chef. The event not only allowed me to eat and critique six different dishes made with the “secret ingredient,” but it also allowed Benchmark Assisted Living’s top chefs to compete in order to raise money for a good cause: the One Company Fund. One Company is a “hardship fund” with the goal of supporting their associates that find themselves in a position of need resulting from circumstances that are out of their control. The evening involved two teams of chefs: the green team and the blue team. Competing chefs included Joe Gerber, Food Service Director of Nashua Crossing (green team), as well as Guy Hemond, Vice President of Dining Services for Benchmark. The secret ingredient of the evening was shrimp, and both teams brought their creativity and culinary skills to the challenge in an inspiring way. The teams each had to make three courses with the crustacean, and it’s amazing what they came up with. As a judge, I had to critique each dish on presentation, creativity, taste and organization on a scale of one through five, five being the best. I have to say, the judging was fairly easy - everything was delicious. From spicy shrimp with cheesy grits to shrimp paired with cranberry risotto and gouda, the chefs created a menu that was extremely diverse, innovative, and downright tasty. The best part, besides raising over $1,000 for the One Company Fund? The patients of Nashua Crossing seemed to be having a fun night out - a night I doubt they will ever forget.

Tags: competition, Iron Chef, Nashua

This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 9:36 pm and is filed under Nashua nosh, Uncategorized, chat 'n chew. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.