Vancouver’s Monica King is used to cooking in her own kitchen, but whipping up a dish at the Culinary Institute of America is another matter. Yet that’s exactly what she did on Sept. 17 when she prepared her Balsamic Mushroom Chicken with Honey Goat Cheese recipe for judges at the Foster Farms West Coast Chicken Cooking Contest in St. Helena, Calif.
“I was a little nervous at first,” said King, 37, who works in the facilities and engineering department at Southwest Washington Medical Center. “I’ve never worked in a professional kitchen before, but it went really well.”
King’s dish was one of six finalists chosen from among more than 2,000 entries. Though she didn’t win the grand prize of $10,000 and a year’s supply of Foster Farms chicken, she did enjoy cooking for the other finalists and for the panel of judges, food writers from various national publications.
“All of them came up to me and told me how much they enjoyed my recipe,” she said. “I was really proud. It was quite an honor.”
Bassist pays tribute to metal legends in band
Mark Trees’ favorite band isn’t Metallica — that would be Iron Maiden — but when the opportunity arose to join a Metallica tribute band in 2007, the 43-year-old Vancouver resident jumped at the chance.
“It’s heavy, but it’s very aggressive,” Trees said of Metallica’s music. “It’s got melodic stuff, it’s got the heavy stuff, and it’s got everything in between.”
Trees joined Motorbreath in 2007 as the band’s bassist and has performed gigs with the band around the Pacific Northwest ever since.
One especially notable gig was a performance at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, Ore.
Motorbreath has performed at the prison the past three summers as part of a program that rewards well-behaved inmates with the chance to serve as crew members for a rock concert.
“At first, it was a little intimidating,” Trees said. “But after the third time, you follow the rules and don’t bother anybody. They’re real receptive, obviously, because they don’t get a lot of entertainment in there.”
Whether in prison or in clubs in the likes of Seattle, Longview or Bend, Ore., Trees gets a thrill from playing songs such as “Master of Puppets” and “One” for energetic audiences.
“It’s a great feeling when you’re able to bring that enjoyment to people and they’re giving the energy back to you,” he said. “Especially when we have a real big crowd, it gets pretty wild.”
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