Dream Team Dining Region’s Best Chefs Combine Talents For Children’s Miracle Network

Brows were wrinkled in deep concentration as I marched into the Manito Country Club’s kitchen on a recent evening.

Food, after all, can be very serious business. And for the more than 20 area chefs who were collaborating on an elegant charity dinner, this was the 11th hour.

Soon, guests would arrive in shimmering evening gowns and tuxedos to sip Mountain Dome champagne and munch on canapes. Chefs were trying not to bump into each other as they fussed over their creations in the kitchen. So many bodies, so little space.

As the restaurant reviewer for The Spokesman-Review, I had been invited to sup with the upper crust, the folks who ponied up $115 per plate to benefit the Children’s Miracle Network. Instead, I wangled an invitation through the back door, for a fly-on-the-wall look at the execution of such an ambitious meal.

At 6 p.m., chef Robb White from the Spokane Country Club and Dan Bower, sous chef from Manito, huddled to run through a checklist of last-minute details.

“Let’s get rubber gloves for everyone. All the team captains are here, right? Let’s set up some extra space to work off,” went the rapid-fire exchange.

Curtis Smith, the chef from Beverly’s in Coeur d’Alene, squeezed by the impromptu conference carrying a stack of plates. At this event, no one was above doing grunt work.

Bower had been in the kitchen since 6 that morning, putting together some dishes and doing prep work.

“Most people did the cooking in their own shop and brought it here ready to go,” he said. Different teams of chefs had been assigned to various courses.

This year, Bower and White were charged with creating the menu and chose to focus on regional products.

“Every year, we try to elevate the meal to a new level, and we wanted to increase the awareness of the incredible foods available in our own backyard,” Bower said.

So, how exactly do you make split peas and salmon into something worthy of forking over big bucks?

Doug Fisher, from Spokane Community College’s Culinary Arts program, masterminded the salmon course. It involved smoking a delicate trout-sized Kokanee filet fished out of Lake Pend Oreille and pairing it with a tart apple dumpling. It was finished with a clear, concentrated broth flavored with celery and caraway seeds.

“I really wanted the apple flavor to come through, so I used some juice in the brine the fish was marinated in,” Fisher said.

As 7 p.m. approached, someone yelled: “All right. Get ready to roll.”

It was time to bring on the first course - a terrine of lamb accented with rosemary oil and a pretty squiggle of syrupy red wine vinaigrette.

The country club’s lounge had been commandeered for the evening to serve as a staging area where plates for some of the early courses were put together. That freed up room in the kitchen for work on the entree.

Tables were lined up and loaded with plates. When more space was needed, TV trays were brought in to provide makeshift work surfaces.

Bower had been putting together the terrine for the better part of a week. As the plates were being prepared, he hovered and made tiny adjustments, moving poached pears a quarter-inch to the right or left. It was painstaking work, but as the plates went out, they looked gorgeous.

Smith wandered by and asked how Bower had done the dish.

They spoke in a sort of chef shorthand, listing ingredients and techniques so quickly that this amateur cook was left vowing to study that stack of Gourmet magazines that have been piling up.

“First I roasted a lamb loin and then made a concentrated stock with leg of lamb, reduced the stock and infused it with herbs, gelatinized it, poured it into a square mold with the loin cushioned between the diced leg of lamb and let it set overnight,” Bower said. “It’s going to melt in your mouth.”

As the courses were served - each with a specially selected wine - Manito’s executive chef, Jim Wolters, explained to diners how the dish was prepared. At first everyone was attentive, but by the time the split pea consomme was served, people were too busy appreciating the food and wine to listen for very long.

Had they been interested, diners would have learned that to create a clear soup out of thick split peas, a raft of protein - namely, egg whites - was floated in the mixture. The solids attached to that raft and cleared it to the consistency of a broth.

About the time the consomme was served, Ray Delfino, the executive chef from the Spokane Club, was concerned. He was the team captain for the intermezzo course, which is typically a light sorbet served to cleanse the palate.

This particular dish called for fennel, a root vegetable with which many people are unfamiliar - meaning they might not be willing to try it.

“You hate to see plates coming back with food on them,” Delfino said. “That hurts.”

But he had given fennel an appealing twist by poaching slices of it in strong mint tea. He then turned the poaching liquid into a refreshing ice. Together, the mint sorbet and fennel made a nice package.

And it proved to be the perfect setup for the show-stopping entree - roast ostrich surrounded by a portobello mushroom-studded chicken mousseline. Out of the oven, this dish looked like a slender white log. In this form, it wasn’t particularly attractive.

Smith from Beverly’s, the man responsible for the big bird, walked members of his team through how he wanted the log sliced.

Jerry Klinkenburg, from Klink’s Resort on Williams Lake, unsheathed the impressive selection of knives that he had packed along and got down to business.

Before long, large stainless steel pans were filling with rosy slices of ostrich. The side dishes - wild rice cakes, roasted acorn squash and steamed carrots - had been divvied up between supporting players and were all on schedule.

It looked as if nothing could possibly go wrong at this point.

“Don’t say that,” Bower said. “One year, we kept running short on things.”

This year, there were numerous no-shows, so there was plenty to go around. The plates that weren’t carried out to the dining room were fodder for the kitchen crew.

“You’ve got to try this ostrich. It’s amazing,” someone suggested to one of the chefs now sitting on the sidelines, who had finished with his part of the program.

While the Ste. Michelle cabernet sauvignon was being poured for guests, the action really heated up in the kitchen.

A line of tall white chef toques bobbed in unison as the main course was plated and sauced and loaded onto serving trays.

“It’s amazing to see this many egos working so well together,” said Daniel Lewis, the executive chef for The Ridpath Hotel.

As the servers delivered entrees to diners, White and Bower acted as the unofficial cheering section.

“Let’s pick up the pace, guys,” they said.

And by the time everyone was happily devouring dinner, they led the applause.

“Great work, everyone. Give yourselves a hand.”

It was after 9, and the serious faces seen earlier around the room had broken into silly grins.

But the evening wasn’t over yet.

As the spectacular salad course - overseen by the Spokane Club’s Rob Schweiger - punctuated the end of the savory selections, work had already started on assembling the sweet stuff.

The dessert - a wondrous-looking concoction of huckleberry Bavarian cream piped into a delicate, 14-karat gold-flecked chocolate shell - was the creation of Stacy McBride, the assistant pastry chef at The Coeur d’Alene Resort.

But she needed all available hands to assemble its many parts. When ladling the velvety cream mixture proved to be too time-consuming, someone rushed to get pastry bags to pipe it into the shell. Even that didn’t go smoothly at first, as some of the cream spilled over the top of the bag and onto the carpet.

But these things happen, and the stain was mopped up almost instantly.

Finishing touches were applied, and Wolters called on the chefs to help serve, a sight you’re not going to see every night.

“It was fun to see their reaction to it,” said Peter Tobin, from the SCC Culinary Arts program. “Everyone said, ‘Wow!”’ The mood behind the scenes had relaxed considerably at this point. Chefs poured themselves wine and unwrapped cigars.

Now, would they eat?

“That’s one thing about working with this food all the time. You lose your appetite for it,” said Smith.

Besides, he had stopped at Senor Froggy on his way into town.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 color photos