May 14, 2010 - 8:55am
Max Dallamore was disappointed to miss his graduation ceremony for
completing the two-year Culinary Arts program at Vancouver Island University but
he had a good reason to be off campus.
He was
busy overseeing production of an award-winning, five-course dinner at Westin
Bear Mountain’s Panache restaurant near Victoria.
As
executive chef for a night, Dallamore faced the challenge not only of meeting
the high expectations of diners at the resort but also of competing against a
fellow student chef from Camosun College in Victoria.
Dallamore
won the Open Chef Night medal for his creativity and professionalism in
preparing the meal with delicacies such as halibut cheeks, sautéed sunchokes, a
shotgun terrine of lamb with smoked parsnip purée, white truffle foam, and a
dessert of a rich chocolate ganache bar with caramel sauce
and salted caramel ice cream.
Winning
the competition was great, Dallamore said, but he really valued the experience
of working at a demanding pace in a high-end professional kitchen. As it turned
out, the medal win was just part of a very good evening for the aspiring chef
who turns 20 this spring.
In the midst of preparing
the dishes under the watchful eye of Panache’s executive chef Iain Rennie and culinary
judges, Dallamore got a text from his classmates. He thought they were putting
him on when they told him he had won the Caspar Beuk Memorial Culinary Award at
the grad ceremony he had missed.
The $1,000
award was real, however, and is presented to a student at VIU’s Culinary
Institute of Vancouver Island (CIVI) for demonstrating “professional promise,
enthusiasm and passion for the culinary field, and improvement in the program.”
To top off
the day, when Dallamore was on his way back to Nanaimo from Bear Mountain, he
heard on the radio that the Vancouver Canucks had come from behind to win their
NHL playoff game.
“It was
three great things for me all in one day,” he said.
When Dallamore
graduated from Highland Secondary School in Comox, he was primarily interested
in pursuing studies in visual arts.
“Originally,
I wanted to go into visual arts. I really like painting and drawing but then I
thought that if I started doing it as a job, I’d really hate it.”
He had
also heard plenty of stories about starving artists so he enrolled in the CIVI
program initially because he thought it would be a secure way to earn a living.
“I got
into culinary arts, thinking of it as a job, but in the past four months, I
really got into the artistic side of it and it’s just been like a home-run in
terms of a career choice. If I was doing anything else, I don’t think I’d do
nearly as well as I am doing.”
He credits
CIVI Chef Instructors including Debbie Shore and Ken Harper for teaching him
technical skills and creative approaches to solving problems and Michael
Pelletier for pointing out that you can enjoy yourself even in the midst of
demanding circumstances.
“It is
work but you can have fun. To me, it’s all play. Since coming here, more than
anything, I’ve learned how to learn. That’s what I’ve taken from this more than
anything.”
Dallamore
is particularly grateful to Culinary Arts program director Craig Rogers. “I
want to extend a huge thank-you to Chef Rogers. He was a great mentor,”
Dallamore said.
“He pushed
me in ways that I’ll never be able to repay him for. He really helped me find
what I want to do and to find where I want to be in the future.”
Dallamore
is headed to Penticton to work at Hillside Estate Winery and Bistro for the
summer. After that, he may return to the West Coast but at some point he wants
the experience of working in Europe and “getting yelled at” in the kitchen of a
high-quality French restaurant.
Dallamore
knows it’s a long way into the future but he hopes to eventually open a
restaurant of his own and demonstrate the skills and creativity that he
develops along the way.
Tags: In the Community
