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JOHNATHON COADY DEFENDS IRON CHEF TITLE WITH TANGERINE MASTERPIECE
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MT. CRESTED BUTTE, CO--The figure in red wig and kimono (who happens to be Tim Mueller, owner of Crested Butte Mountain Resort) whips the drape off the table with a dramatic flourish, to reveal… tangerines. A collective gasp rises from the crowd, who can almost hear the cogs turning in the minds of the three chefs poised on the Center for the Arts stage. Chef Jonathon Coady, Crested Butte's defending Iron Chef, exchanges a raised-eyebrow glance with his assistant, his brother Chris. The clock starts ticking.
Starting right now, each of the three Chefs on the Edge (formerly Iron Chef) contestants must use 60 minutes, a bag of surprise groceries and the unveiled tangerines to create an improv three-course feast, while 220 people stare at them and two MCs poke microphones in their faces for articulate color commentary. Every surprise grocery item must be used at least once and the secret ingredient (tangerines) must be used in every dish. Each chef has a cooking station, one assistant and access to the shared pantry of seasonings, flour, butter and other staples - no prepared ingredients.
Fifty-nine minutes later: Chef Jon deftly cradles the last chocolate-covered tangerine in its toasted meringue bird's nest and centers the sculpture on a dessert plate artfully painted with tangerine crème anglaise. The dessert takes its place beside an elk tenderloin pan-seared with a tangerine-roasted red pepper-blackened tomato chutney and served with a zinfandel reduction. And the appetizer: macadamia nut-encrusted salmon dressed with a minted tangerine lavender foam, with additional foam served in a tangerine star (a halved tangerine with the pulp removed from its sections).
The four judges, including renowned French celebrity chef Pierre Wolfe of Denver, make their way to the four place settings prepared by each chef. The audience, which has worked up an appetite from all its good-natured heckling, cheering and placard-waving, falls into a hush as the judges inspect, sample and confer. Chef Pierre pronounces one word for the chocolaty tangerine in its toasted meringue nest: "Masterpiece!" The final verdict: Chef Jon has done it again.
Jonathan Coady, executive chef for Crested Butte Mountain Resort, is hardly used to cooking with a microphone in his face and 220 people watching, but he is in his element in a kitchen blending unexpected flavors and creating edible art under intense time pressure.
No culinary school product, Chef Jon started working in master kitchens at the age of 14, washing dishes to earn spending money in Scottsdale, Arizona. The next ten years brought a series of informal apprenticeships as he climbed through the culinary ranks in five-star restaurants. As in the show "Hell's Kitchen," the tyrannical international chefs there berated their apprentices "to bring you to the level they needed… or to weed you out," Chef Jon recalled.
The fledgling chef found a fit in the intense, fast-paced, precise and artistic world of upscale cuisine. His personality, drive and instinct for blending tastes in creative ways propelled him to high-level positions in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. Along the way he earned accolades and honors, including a first place in the Taste of Santa Fe, a gold medal in the ACF Chefs of Santa Fe competition, and a place among the top seven finalists for Colorado Chef of the Year.
After 14 years in Santa Fe, where he worked as executive chef at the Evergreen Restaurant and then the Hilton of Santa Fe, Chef Jon and his wife began looking for a smaller, family-oriented town in which to raise their young daughter. Gunnison, where Jon's brother Chris ran a bakery, seemed ideal, so Chef Jon took the CBMR executive chef position and moved from hotel to ski resort cuisine.
Already accustomed to supervising multiple food operations, Chef Jon quickly adapted to the diverse venues of CBMR. "In the hotel, I took the elevator from one venue to the other; now I ski or ride a truck or snowcat. You get used to using a radio and dragging the warmers up the mountain, over mud or moguls. It's a fun environment."
Chef Jon brings the principles of fine dining to each distinct venue: from burgers and pizza at the Gothic Cafeteria to Butte 66 barbecue to Tuscan Italian at Rustica to elaborate catered weddings to four-course meals for the Paradise and Ice Bar sleigh ride dinners.
"You have to stay focused within each environment," he said. "You want quality and the perception of value for each set of clients. My job is to make a profit, and you do that with repeat business and people telling other people about their meals."
Chef Jon arrived in Crested Butte in December 2002, shortly before the Muellers purchased and began upgrading the ski resort. "I got here at the right time," he said. "I feel like we're going to be a first-class resort." Along with supervising CBMR's existing eateries, Chef Jon has been helping design kitchen areas for the new Conference Center (which will come on line next summer), Red Lady Lodge (planned near the top of the Red Lady chairlift with up to 700 dining seats, including a high-end restaurant) and Cimarron Building (which will replace the existing Gothic Building and include a cafeteria and restaurant). "This place is exploding, and it's fun to be in on the planning stage," he said.
In 2005, Chef Jon entered his first Chefs on the Edge competition (then called the Iron Chef, in honor of the Food Network program it loosely mimicked). A month before the event he started imagining various dishes he could make, depending on the surprise groceries and secret ingredient. Although he'd done well in cooking competitions before, he was nervous, knowing he'd be working with unknown ingredients in front of a feisty crowd. "By nature I clam up in a big group; it's not my bag," he said. He recalls mumbling somewhat incoherently the first time the MC tried to interview him at his cooking station.
But when the drapery flew off to reveal 2005's secret ingredient, Chef Jon brightened. Fennel. Bulbs and bulbs of fresh fennel. "My predetermined ideas were shot out of the water," he said. "But I've worked with fennel a lot."
An hour after the fennel unveiling, Chef Jon and assistant Chris presented their title-clenching feast. Main plate: goat cheese and fennel-stuffed pork tenderloin roulade with blackberry cabernet reduction, served with pureed parsnip and fennel. Artful side dish: a transparent potato-fennel window, made by crisp-frying paper-thin sheets of potato with fennel sandwiched in between, served with fennel veloute. The decorative piece de resistance: miniature kiva fireplaces made from the fennel bulbs, adorned with red pepper julienne to look like tiny fires.
"It's all about presentation first," Chef Jon said. "Then you follow through with taste. People have to taste it and say, 'Wow.'"
Chef Jon will be invited to defend his title yet again in the spring 2007 Chefs on the Edge competition.
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Real Estate in the Crested Butte Valley
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