Food Fight 6 sweetens CCVI’s biggest fundraising night

“God forbid it’s Key limes,” Carter Holton says. “Have you ever tried to juice one of those?”

The pastry chef for Sasha’s Baking Co. and the River Club is answering my question with the ironic theatricality familiar to anyone who has talked to him for more than a couple of minutes. On this January morning, he means to entertain not just me but also the other two pastry chefs I’m interviewing. They’re amused — they have to be, because all three are going to have to juice, zest, slice or otherwise confront something citrus this week, when they compete against one another for charity in Food Fight 6. The Children’s Center for the Visually Impaired’s annual culinary-themed fundraiser happens Monday, February 2, at Union Station’s Science City.

This year, the event is called “The Final Course” — you know, dessert — and the contestants are obliged to make creative use of the in-season fruits — including grapefruit, lemons, oranges and, yes, limes. Each chef gets six cases of the stuff to work with, having spent months pondering the broader possibilities of peel, pith and pulp.

“We know it’s citrus,” says Elizabeth Paradise, pastry chef at the Prairie Village restaurant Story. “We just don’t know what kind of citrus.”

Paradise, Holton and Nick Wesemann (of the American Restaurant) hadn’t met before they were tapped to face off in this year’s Food Fight, but they knew one another’s restaurants and, as the event has neared, they’ve struck up an obvious rapport. But if their lighthearted competition is perfectly friendly, they know that there’s a state-of-the-dining-room message embedded in this Food Fight: Fewer and fewer restaurants employ full-time pastry chefs, and it’s the diner’s loss.

“A great pastry chef can create more complex and unexpected desserts,” Wesemann says.

“There’s this belief that pastry chefs are high-maintenance divas,” Paradise says. “But it’s simply not true.”

For his part, Holton cultivates some of that diva pose — bursting into song in the kitchen, say. “I bring a lot of personality and sass to the job,” he says.

Judging their efforts are a few people on whom the nuances of a perfectly engineered dessert aren’t lost: Megan Garrelts, pastry chef and co-owner of Bluestem and Rye; chocolatier Christopher Elbow; culinary blogger Shannon Bowman; and Dan Swinney, executive chef at Lidia’s.

Besides what they serve the judges, Wesemann, Holton and Paradise face some smaller tests Monday night. Around 8 p.m., a separate panel of honorary judges — Dave Crum, the tomato maven of Crum’s Heirlooms; Josh Eans of Happy Gillis Café and Hangout; and Janet Ross, sous chef at Café Sebastienne — will pose what Murphy calls “culinary quickfire challenges” for the competing trio. “Whipping egg whites blindfolded might be one,” she says.

For the contest proper, Holton, Paradise and Wesemann aren’t restricted to desserts for the plates they serve the judges. And those who attend the event (tickets are at ccvi.org/foodfight) will have more than sweets on their plates, along with samples of what Holton, Paradise and Wesemann prepare.

“We’ll have 10 tasting stations with food from local restaurants,” says Traci Todd Murphy, CCVI’s marketing and communications manager. Some of the restaurants on the bill: Cafe Sebastienne, Lon Lane’s Inspired Occasions, the Rieger Hotel Grill & Exchange, and Lidia’s. The party also includes cocktails and a live auction.

Murphy says there’s another reason that this year’s fundraiser is called “The Final Course.” CCVI is making this its last culinary-competition fundraiser. (The organization’s biggest single event remains its annual Trolley Run footrace, scheduled this year for April 26.) “There are a lot of other events like this in the city now,” she says. “We’re inspired to create something new.”

The competing chefs seem to have very different tastes, at least when I ask them what they’d make for this contest if there were no mystery ingredient involved.

“Ice cream,” Paradise says.

“Croissants and Danish pastries,” Holton says.

“Some kind of steamed dessert,” Wesemann says, “not like a British pudding — more along the lines of Chinese steamed buns.”

But when I ask them what they’d make for a family meal if they worked together in the same restaurant, they suddenly are of one mind.

“Fried chicken,” Holton says.

“All the fixin’s,” Wesemann adds.

“Apple pie,” Paradise finishes.

(As for the mystery ingredient that each would select, given the opportunity, they part company once again. Paradise doesn’t hesitate much before saying hers would be Campari, whereas Wesemann would prefer brown sugar. Holton waits a beat and then all but shouts, “Yeast!”)

But the real challenge at Food Fight isn’t the citrus but rather the location. Science City has no ovens, no coolers and no cooking surfaces.

“That means that most of our prep work and cooking will have to be done off-site,” Paradise says. It also means a lot of hauling and coordinating (with each chef enlisting an assistant that night). But these three pros don’t seem worried.

“It’s going to be interesting,” Paradise says. “And, after the demands of Restaurant Week, it will almost seem like there’s nothing to do.”

Food Fight 6: The Final Course
6 p.m. Monday, February 2, at Science City at Union Station, 30 West Pershing Road, 816-841-2284, ccvi.org/foodfight