By David Rogers. January 24, 2012. BLOWING ROCK – If the rest of the 2012 Fire on the Rock events are anything like Tuesday evening’s “Battle of the Champions” at Crippens Country Inn in Blowing Rock, High Country culinary fans are in for a remarkable competition dining treat during February, March and April.  For Stan Chamberlain, his Tuesday night "win" places him firmly among the High Country's culinary elite.

One course can "make you or break you" in the Fire on the Rock competition dining format, masterminded for the seventh year by Blowing Rock’s own Jimmy Crippen.  "It's grill or be grilled," Crippen told Blowing Rock News Tuesday night. "The diners are the judges and they have no idea who the chefs are that prepare the individual courses. We ask the chefs not to prepare dishes that are signature creations from their respective restaurants.  We ask the diners to not try to identify who prepared what dish. The integrity of this competition depends on the diners simply voting their palates.  What tastes good? What looks good? What knocks you off your feet?  It is as simple as that."

Since Crippens is the host for the Fire on the Rock competition each year, Chamberlain is disqualified from competing.  Instead, he serves as "Chef Ref", making sure all of the rules are followed and getting the chef entries anything and everything they need. So the "Battle of the Champions" is the only opportunity that Crippens' executive chef can get a taste of the competition dining format as a participant, for which he qualified by finishing in the "Top Three" for the Best NC Dish competition in 2011.

What is remarkable about Tuesday night's eventual result is that the Crippens dining room was dominated by supporters who were clearly fans of Nate Allen, Knife and Fork Restaurant in Spruce Pine, based on the raucous applause Allen received when introduced..  Moreover, to edge out Chetola's remarkable culinarian, Barbato, is a feat in and of itself.  The Timberlake chef earned second place, based in no small measure to a "Granny Smith Apple Tort" dessert that quite literally had many of the women in the room emitting moans of "Oh My God!" (over and over again).

Seventy per cent (70%) of the final score is attributed to the non-professional diners.  Thirty per cent (30%) to a team of four independent professional judges.

True to form, one sensational dish propelled Crippen’s own executive chef, Chamberlain, to the winner’s circle Tuesday night.  He prevailed over 2011 Fire on the Rock Champion Michael Barbato of Timberlake’s Restaurant (Chetola Mountain Resort & Spa, Blowing Rock) and Nate Allen of Knife & Fork, Spruce Pine, winner of the 2011 Western North Carolina Chefs Challenge and Cooking Light’s “Small Town Chef Award.”

“Country Fried Quail” was the talk of the evening, capturing 89.9% of the possible points from the public diners and 86.7% of the possible points from the four professional judges.  If Mr. Crippen hasn’t already made plans to put this culinary masterpiece on his menu, he should go get that lobotomy reversed, it was that good. What’s more, Chamberlain accompanied the quail with among the most popular side dishes of the evening, too, including smoked tomato risotto, sweet corn custard, and deviled hollandaise – all of them the perfect “country” accompaniment to the quail entrée.

Out of the six courses, Chamberlain had the runaway most popular in the quail. He also had a commendable fourth-place dish in “Crispy Calamari.”  It was accompanied by grilled cucumber, abalone mushroom, sea beans and, in this reporter’s opinion, perhaps the most sensational side dish of the night, a concoction called, “black ice.”  We still haven’t figured out what we ate, or what made it black, but it was a great complement to the calamari and a wonderful way to finish the course (and a nice reminder that occasionally we have a road hazard called, "black ice"!.

The full menu included:

• COURSE #1 -- Crispy Calimari, with grilled cucumber, abalone mushroom, seabeans, and "black ice"
• COURSE #2 -- Trout 3-Ways: trout tempura, ceviche mignonette, crispy trout skin
• COURSE #3 -- Stuffed Avocado, with quinoa, cauliflower riccotta, spaghetti squash
• COURSE #4 -- Roasted Chicken, with baby arugula, long neck pumpkin, chicken jus
• COURSE #5 -- Country Fried Quail, with smoked tomato risotto, sweet corn custard, deviled hollandaise
• COURSE #6 -- Granny Smith Apple Tort, with champagne sorbet and almond cookie

The diner-judges, whether public or professional, evaluated each course and assigned a 1-5 rating, with five being the highest, in six criteria, including Presentation, Aroma, Flavor, Creativity and Execution. A "wrinkle" in the diner interactivity that has been introduced for the 2012 events allows for each diner to enter digital scores into their smart phones, iPads, or tablet PCs.  When they tell the device to "submit" after entering assessments for each round, Crippens' main computer quickly and accurately tabulates the score.

The scoring for the evening, with the chef teams responsible for them:

"Wow!," Crippen exclaimed in sitting down with Blowing Rock News afterwards.  Assessing the opening 2012 event of the series Crippen said, "What a meal. There was not a bad dish anywhere among those six courses. We had three fabulous chefs having a good time and putting out great food.

"I am most pleased," Crippen continued, admitting, "with how the digital voting went.  It went without a hitch. I cannot say enough about my friend Derek Sanderson who made the digital voting and tabulations possible."

An estimated 10% of the Tuesday night diners manually filled out their rating forms, while 90% used the digital application for their smartphone or tablet PC. "The best part is that where someone was entering manually, someone next to them with a digital entry device entered their neighbors, too.  So we probably had more like 95% digital."

Blowing Rock News interviewed the judges after the meal and before the results were announced. Alline Skees of Wilkesboro summed up the judges general consensus when she said, "Excellent. Everything was just fabulous."

In evaluating the courses, Mrs. Skees said, "The quail was really unusual. I really enjoyed that.  The chicken certainly was good. The apple tort was fabulous. And I love calimari.  I would pay big bucks for the calimari." Of the side dishes, Mrs. Skees said she likes vegetables, so the spaghetti squash was a favorite among the side dishes.

Leveta Nowell, who with her husband has residences in Wilkesboro and Blowing Rock, liked the quail, but also highlighted the stuffed avocado as one of her favorites.

"Things got progressively better," noted professional judge Allen Nowell, husband of Leveta for 34 years.  "We've being doing this quite awhile.  I think I was at the first Fire on the Rock in the year of the blizzard, and we have gone several times every year since. My favorite was the quail. It was just excellent. But it was also neck and neck with the dessert."

Bob Skees (husband of Alline) promptly identified his favorites as the quail and the calamari. "But every one of these chefs did (these dishes) about as good as they could do them. There was not a bad dish among them."

Blowing Rock News was able find one point of difference -- er, discussion -- among Mr. and Mrs. Skees' respective impressions of the courses.  When asked what he thought about the fried trout skins, Mr. Skees quickly replied, "I liked 'em."  Wrinkling her nose, Mrs. Skees disagreed, saying, "I thought they were 'iffy'." She said she agreed with the concept of sustainable agriculture where the chefs find uses for the whole animal in fine dining cuisine, but said, "I'll let someone else enjoy that one."

In accepting recognition as the winner of the "Battle of the Champions," Chamberlain told the crowd that Fire on the Rock is a great way for diners to "step outside the box" when ordering a meal. "One of the reasons I really like this format, especially with a secret ingredient, is that you get to prepare dishes that people normally wouldn't think to order. With Fire on the Rock, people have to eat what the chefs prepare, so they are forced to try some new things."

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