July 20, 2009

Written by: Vince McConeghy

Richert vs. Fenush
Boxscore

J.J.Richert, Chef/Owner of Torches Restaurant, earned victory in the second installment of Nickel City Chef, defeating Joseph Fenush, Chef de Cuisine of the Park Country Club, by a 54 –47 margin.

The event played to an overflow crowd at Artisan Kitchen Stadium Sunday July 19th, and besides the grueling competition between the two chefs, the main ingredient to the competition –an assortment of sausages from Spar’s European Sausage Shop, produced a mere two blocks from away from the Stadium (now that’s Local!) – was the runaway hit of the day.

Sausage, made in the tradition of Spar’s, automatically invokes the Hippocratic clause of a chef’s raison d’etre – when confronted by an ingredient of this caliber; the imperative of the practitioner is to do no harm. 

Sausage is one of the culinary universe’s greatest de-constructed products, held together by the skill of the sausage maker alone. And thus, any Chef that seeks to deconstruct that which has already been deconstructed, does so at extreme peril. The outcome, more often than not, is less than satisfactory, as was noted by the judges who, in a sign of Nickel City Chef's maturity, showed their fangs on occasion for dishes that somehow missed the mark.

Unfortunately for both chefs, there was also a show to put on, and that they did, finishing all of their plates before the final bell, tripping an electrical breaker in the process that controlled a portion of the stage lighting, knocking one of the judges off the dais (Nelson Starr took a gracious tumble and dusted himself off, getting right back at it), and running moderator Chef Mike Andrezjewski ragged between set-ups, trying to keep up with the amped testosterone of these two gun-slinger chefs.

If there is anyone in Western New York that can make this summer’s insufferable soggy weather disappear, that person is most likely Chef Fenush. He came to Kitchen Stadium armed with a chemical arsenal and an advanced technique that may not have won the competition but somehow re-arranged the carbon footprint above Kitchen Stadium.

Fenush plated three dishes – an extremely aggressive degustation of the four sausages, a deconstructed, molecularly re-arranged shrimp and grits entrée, and a reach-for-the-fences use a Himalayan salt block in his last offering that prompted differing opinions on the olfactory stimulus of this technique from the judges.

Richert chose a more traditional path, keeping his choices in alignment with the natural trajectory of fine sausage, plating a paella, an gnocchi-supported, Merguez coil, and the hands-down show stopper – a steamed platter of Spar’s signature Augsburger Bratwurst served with caraway-scented sauer kraut, grainy mustard spaetzle and Dunkle Weisse.

The margin of victory, most decisively secured in the use of ingredients category (a five point differential that separated the competitors) supported Richert’s decisions.

Buffalo is flavor country, and when it comes to sausage, the less done the better. There is enough embedded sausage DNA in our food consciousness that to do more is to tamper with the Gods. Joe Kennedy, the proprietor of Spar’s and one of the event's judges, knows this well. His restrained critiques, positive and negative, were the last word on yet another chapter in what is evolving into one of the most creative and celebratory demonstrations of our local culinary scene.