Fresh Sheet: Hegsted set to defend Cajun title

Here’s the cure for those winter blahs: The ninth annual mARTi gras benefit and Cajun Cook-off.

The annual fundraiser for Coeur d’Alene’s Art on the Edge program is sure to wake up hibernating taste buds, if nothing else. The party will be held from 6 p.m. to midnight on Feb. 17 at five downtown locations in Coeur d’Alene: Brix Restaurant, Cricket’s Steakhouse and Oyster Bar, the Iron Horse, the Coeur d’Alene Resort Plaza and Barrel Room No. 6 Wine Bar.

Ticket holders can stroll to each of the locations for live music and food prepared by area chefs as part of the Cajun Cook-off. Chefs from 11 area restaurants will take on two-time champion Chef Adam Hegsted of Brix Restaurant for best Cajun dish. Look inside today’s Food section for last year’s winning recipe.

Revelers also have the option of purchasing one ticket to attend both the mARTi gras fundraiser and the Coeur d’Alene Resort’s Winter Blues Festival at the Coeur d’Alene Resort. Tickets to the mARTi gras benefit are $45 per person in advance or $50 the day of the event. Tickets to the benefit and the Coeur d’Alene Resort’s Blues Festival are $70. They can be purchased at the resort’s concierge desk, the North Idaho College TicketQuick Box Office or St. Vincent de Paul.

Art on the Edge volunteers also will host art activities for children of all ages from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Feb. 17 in the Coeur d’Alene Resort Plaza. The cost is $5 per child, but scholarships are available for those who cannot pay.

Proceeds benefit Art on the Edge, a nonprofit group operated through St. Vincent de Paul that offers free art classes to area children. For more information, call (208) 773-1725.

Surprise dinner

Darcy Camden came home from Seattle’s Pike Place Market recently with a surprise.

The Lewis and Clark graduate (former writer for The Spokesman-Review’s teen section and daughter of S-R political reporter Jim Camden) was shopping during her lunch hour at the Seattle market when she met a producer who was scouting for The Living Channel’s “Take Home Chef.” She left with a possible invitation to appear on the show. You know: “We’ll be in touch.”

But as it turned out, “Take Home Chef” producers were filming the show the week Camden and her boyfriend Gary Werden celebrated their fifth anniversary, and it was her turn to make the dinner arrangements. Camden works in public relations for John Robert Powers, an acting and modeling academy. Werden is general manager of BC Surf & Sport.

With Chef Curtis Stone’s help, Camden surprised her beau with tapas plates, lobster and mango blini. “Honestly that is the only part of the show that is real. Everything else is staged,” Camden said. TLC packed up the gourmet picnic and sent the couple off in a limo. “Very romantic with five camera guys in there,” she said.

The episode is the “Take Home Chef” season premiere at 7 p.m. Friday on TLC.