Iron Chef Williamsport 2010

$7203 raised for Family Promise

At 5:00 P.M., Sunday, April 25, 2010, a full house of 110 guests gathered in Fellowship Hall, here at St. Mark’s, waiting to be fed and entertained.

The kitchen staff, under the direction of Bob Jones, was ready and waiting to plate up the meal featuring a Chicken Cordon Bleu entrée and a Chocolate Atrocity for dessert; Declan had his dining room staff primed to provide the best service in town; Carlos and his crew were making final equipment checks; and Pastor Elkin, haunting the halls, was heard to be muttering, “Salmon?… Eggplant?… GRITS?…DRAT!?!”

Fortunately, those plans were unnecessary and our home team faced up to First United Methodist with all the fortitude and culinary skills they had at their disposal. Both teams had to prepare a shrimp appetizer and salmon as an entrée. At that point, however, things got tricky: as their vegetable and starch, St. Mark’s was required to work with, indeed, eggplant and grits; while First Church was given bok choy and wild rice. As an added challenge this year, an ultra-secret ingredient of honeydew melon was given to us 10 minutes into the competition. No planning ahead for that one!

The competition was stiff.  The results were very, very close - St. Mark's 213, First Church 212. Great effort teams !

Referee Chef Mike Ditchfield kept them honest and the judges—Chef Rob Armstrong, Chef Peter Zerbe and Chef Michael Yaw—came to a fair conclusion.

Many thanks go out to our patrons and guests; to all those who worked so hard preparing and serving the meal; to our worthy opponents and officials; our emcee, Gary Chrisman; and First Contact Productions for their technical expertise

A total of over $7200 was raised for Family Promise of Lycoming County.

Funds were raised from several sources.  Most was from our generous patrons; a large part in ticket sales; still more from the purchase of the stained-glass centerpieces; Theoron Hershey won the prize from the WCC kitchen staff, earning the most “Tips for a Promise” from the guests he was serving. The youth raised a total of $481 in tips from their tables.

All in all: a good time for a great cause!