Zero point two three points.
That's all that kept a Paul Kane graduate from being declared one of the top chefs in the world at this month's Culinary Olympics in Germany.
Paul Kane alumnus and chef Peter Keith took gold in the regional competition as a member of Culinary Team Alberta during the 2012 International Culinary Exhibition (a.k.a. the Culinary Olympics) held from Oct. 5 to 10 in Erfurt, Germany.
Fellow alumnus Patrick Gayler took gold and silver as a member of Team Canada, which placed fourth overall in the national competition.
Both chefs returned to Canada this week after a celebratory tour of Germany.
Team Alberta scored a 90.51 in the regional competition, coming in second behind the Stockholm Culinary Team's 90.74 and earning it a gold medal. (Teams are scored out of 100 and get medals once they get above certain thresholds — 90 for gold, 80 for silver and 70 for bronze.)
Just to get a gold medal at the Olympics was unbelievable, said Keith, as this was his first time at the event. "But to be that close to being best in the world — there's pretty much no words to describe how that felt."
Just 0.18 points separated Team Canada from the third-place finisher Germany.
When the score's that close, Gayler said, you get to thinking about all the little things you could have done differently. "It gets a little frustrating, but overall I'm pretty happy with the way we performed."
Endurance match
Held once every four years, the Culinary Olympics draws some 800 chefs from 54 nations, and is considered one of the world's most prestigious culinary challenges.
Regional teams competed in a "cold platter" contest where food is judged solely on looks. National ones had to do that in addition to a "hot kitchen" event, where they cooked 100 plates of food live before judges and about a thousand guests.
Keith said he had to make a seafood platter featuring sushi-like pieces of salmon, tiger prawn, halibut and trout, complete with a gold-coloured Haida fish sculpture made of thin dough.
"It's a lot more relaxing than you'd find at Skills Alberta," he said, referring to Alberta's annual trades competition, but it got pretty intense in the last eight hours. "We knew that they were judging quite hard," he continued, and being stingy with the medals — Alberta was one of only two regional teams to make gold.
The Olympics were more of a marathon for Team Canada. It took them about 18 hours to unpack everything needed for the cold platter contest, Gayler said, and another 18 hours the next day to actually compete.
Then came the hot kitchen event the day after that. "We were up from 5:00 Sunday morning until 7:00 or 8:00 Monday night," Gayler said, cooking and cleaning all the while. "There was no time for sleep." He barely had time to notice his wife and parents in the audience.
Everyone started getting a little silly towards the end, Gayler continues, talking strangely and mumbling to themselves. "The next day or two, you're just absolutely exhausted."
Team Canada won silver in the cold event and gold in the hot, placing fourth out of 35 teams overall. Sweden took first overall.
Gayler said he wasn't sure if he'd stay with Team Canada for its next outing, the 2014 Culinary World Cup. "I've been competing in either the Olympics or the World Cup since 2003," he said, and it might be time to take a break. "It's fun, but it's a lot (of work) too."
Keith said he definitely wanted to do the Olympics again, but was currently busy preparing for next month's WorldSkills Americas competition in Brazil.
"I think sometimes young chefs doubt themselves too much," he said, when asked what he had learned from the Olympics. Most of his teammates were under 22, and no one could have expected them to outperform so many older, more experienced chefs. "If you put your heart into it and really work hard, you can achieve results like this."
Full results can be found at 2012.olympiade-der-koeche.de/en/competitions/results.html.
