After launching our very first Inspire culinary competition to all staff in December, we are pleased to announce the finalists who are through the cook offs to decide the winning dishes which will be featured on the Shine Ball menu, our inaugural fundraising dinner! We received a great response to the competition, and have now managed to narrow this down to 7 entrants competing to win!
The competition is split into 5 different courses – starter, fish, main, vegetarian main and dessert. Entrants had the opportunity to submit their full menu in written form until 6th January. After some difficult deliberation due to the quality of submissions, the judging panel managed to whittle it down to the chosen 7 finalists to compete across the 5 courses.
One of the main elements of the competition is that entrants were chosen as finalists on a dish-by-dish basis, rather than for their whole menu as an entire offer. So if the judges were impressed by your dessert, but not so keen on your starter, you were still in with the chance of progressing to the next stage of the competition.
Finalists
The finalists themselves are based across a number of different Inspire sites both in terms of location and industry/client base. Progressing to the next stage are:
- Brian Reid, TAQA, Aberdeen
- Mark Sturrock, Erskine Stewart’s Melville Schools, Edinburgh
- Graham Burgess, Maersk Oil, Aberdeen
- Dougie MacDonald, Kilgraston School, Perthshire
- Cameron Kelly, Odfjell Drilling, Aberdeen
- Lindsay Prior, Wood Group, Aberdeen
- Tony Bukhsh, Kelvinside Academy, Glasgow
Cook off!
The chosen finalists will now go on to have a cook off to decide the overall winners of each dish. This stage takes place on Tuesday 24th and Wednesday 25th January at Sir Ian Wood House in Aberdeen. All finalists will be invited to cook their selected dishes within a set prep and cooking time, before presenting to the judges.
Then comes the hard task of selecting the overall winners!
We really appreciate all the effort that was put in by those who prepared and submitted a menu for consideration. It makes us really proud to see the number of talented and creative people we have in our midst at Inspire.