The American Culinary Federation (ACF), through its Nation's Capital Chef's Association officially sanctioned the 2008 Chesapeake Chef Challenge held at the Mid-Atlantic Food, Beverage & Lodging EXPO held on September 17 & 18 at the Baltimore Convention Center. The Chesapeake Chef Challenge is an ACF sanctioned K-9 culinary competitions where the competitors have one hour to fabricate a 2 pound round or flat fish for the judges.
Vaishali Chitnis, an instructor at Stratford University, made history by taking top honors although she had never competed in an ACF sanctioned competition ever before. The four Certified Master Chefs who judged the event were certain, as Chitnis beat our 24 other competitors to become the 2008 champion. Second place honors went to Bitna Lee of the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center and third place went ot Russel Cunningham of Agraria Restaurant in Washington, DC.
To help promote the bounty of the Chesapeake Bay, the Maryland Department of Agriculture's Seafood Marketing Program provided cash prizes and Maryland crab meat for the competition. Cash prizes include $1,000 for 1st place, $750 for 2nd place and $500 for 3rd place. RJH Air Conditioning & Refrigeration also sponsored the event by providing Rational Combi Ovens for the competitors to use. Other sponsors included Keany Produce, Fells Point Wholesale Meats and Hearn Kirkwood.