Food Moment – Dinner with David Adjey

Tonight, Sarah and I had the pleasure of sitting down with 10 other local Edmonton food bloggers for an intimate dinner and conversation with Chef David Adjey. Chef Adjey is a world renowned Canadian chef who has appeared on Food Network’s Restaurant Makeover and has a new show called The Opener which debuts this fall. David was also the personal chef for actor Dan Akroyd and has been providing his consulting services to many restaurants for several years. David is in Edmonton this week as the Hokanson Chef in Residence at the NAIT culinary school.  This program, brings in some of the top chefs from across Canada to work with the culinary students as a mentor and provide them the opportunity to see them in action.

Diane Begin from NAIT, organized a dinner and Q&A session for local bloggers who had the chance to meet David and ask him a variety of questions. Diane also invited the public to ask David questions via Twitter for the chance to win an autographed copy of David’s book – Deconstructing the Dish. The evening’s conversation was recorded and will be available on NAIT’s official TechLife channel on YouTube later this week. Fellow bloggers included: Brooke Jensen,  Cathy Walsh, Chris Falconer,  Isabelle Gallant, Mack Male, Sharon Yeo, Marianne Stover,  Nikki Stoyko, Twylla Campbell, Valerie Rodgers Lugonja, and Maki B. Students from NAIT’s culinary program served a delicious meal featuring recipes from David’s cookbook. My favourite dish of the evening was the beef with buttermilk onion rings.

David answered a variety of questions ranging from what he likes to cook when he’s at home to who would play him if they made a movie of his life. He was very frank and open and shared tales of what it’s like to be a chef in the world of celebrity and money. His Playboy persona and tales of lap dances, drunken escapades, and shopping sprees, may have caught a few of the local bloggers off guard but I enjoyed his frankness and willingness to just be himself; something for which he openly confessed to and made no apologies about.

Here is a quick video clip I shot where David answers a question about what ingredient he likes to cook with.

Here are a few photos from the evening’s event. Be sure to visit the blogs of everyone who attended this evening to get their impressions of the evening. You can also watch the full event on NAIT’s YouTube channel later this week. Thanks again to Diane Begin from NAIT for organizing the event and thanks to Chef Adjey for spending time with us and answering our questions.