Klink set to go to extremes on new Food Network show

What does it take to be an Extreme Chef?

Guts and mad kitchen skills to be sure, but a down chef’s jacket and fur-lined hat would have helped, too.

LJ Klink, co-owner of Klink’s on the Lake at Williams Lake and the director of the Richland Community College’s Culinary Arts Institute in Decatur, Ill., makes his Food Network debut Thursday on the “Ice House” episode of the new series “Extreme Chef.”

In the show, Klink arrives blindfolded and must prepare a cooked but cold appetizer in 25 minutes during a torrential hailstorm with only a glass frying pan lid to protect the food.

The winner wears a warm vest in the following challenge, during which the chefs must climb up ice slides to a storage warehouse to cook with a “pocket rocket” stove. They make a drinking glass with a power drill and prepare a garnish using liquid nitrogen.

And they have to serve the meal on plates hidden in a massive snowdrift, according to a news release.

One of the chefs is eliminated before the final challenge, in which the competitors break through a 300-pound block of ice using hand tools to get their ingredients.

Klink competes against Edie Robertson, a private chef from Santa Barbara, Calif., and Luca Rutigliano, executive chef at the Cordevalle Resort in San Martin, Calif.

Does he have what it takes? Tune in to the Food Network at 10 p.m. Thursday to find out; Klink is sworn to secrecy.

“It is absolutely nuts, but it was quite a ride to say the least,” he says. “I can tell you this: A lot of people believe that this stuff is staged or is only half real … but on this show, the blood, the tears, the agony is all real. The stress is real.”

Klink grew up in the family business, working in the kitchen at Klink’s on the Lake, where he was sous chef and later executive chef for 11 years. He graduated from the Inland Northwest Culinary Academy at Spokane Community College and later received degrees from Eastern Washington University in communications and government and holds a master’s degree in organizational leadership from Gonzaga University.

He’s working on a doctorate in higher education leadership and is a certified executive chef by the American Culinary Federation.

Show producers from Los Angeles recruited Klink for “Extreme Chef” in December and he appeared in a pilot episode. They called him back a few weeks later to say the Food Network was picking up the series and ask him to compete again.

The challenges change with every episode and Klink says he had no idea what to expect. The show features competitors climbing mountains with their cooking gear and swimming across lakes to get ingredients. Some must cook handcuffed and others use only Swiss Army knives or a car’s engine to prepare meals. Dust storms, rattlesnakes and other twists hinder them further.

“I loved the opportunity to go on and cook with two people who are just very, very talented chefs and successful in the industry. I’ve always put myself out there and I want to be a good example for my students. I had nothing to prove,” Klink says.

Which probably made him wonder why he agreed to a competition held inside freezers in the Arctic Glacier Ice Factory in Los Angeles. Klink says they were working at temperatures of minus 5 degrees, and a couple of times he started to feel nauseated and worried about the onset of hypothermia.

“It was the hardest cooking test that I have ever, ever even thought about. To tell you the truth it was nuts … my favorite word for it is twisted,” he says.

Klink is also working on the launch of a new cooking comic book aimed at adult readers. The heroes’ superpowers are taste and smell (of course) and each book includes the recipes and instructions for a four-course meal.

He’s also in the midst of moving his family back to the Spokane area. His wife just got a job here and he’s started looking for a local opportunity in teaching or the culinary business.

Klink says he used to think that “Iron Chef” was the Food Network’s pinnacle for a cooking competition. Now, he’s not so sure.

“It is intense but at least it is a controlled environment,” he says. “But if this is my only opportunity to go on the Food Network and do a competition, I’m glad it was for this show.”