From omelets to Olympics
Culinary Institute graduate leading Youth Team Canada to the Culinary Olympics
Logan Rafuse started with omelets.
His mom showed him how to make one at age 10, but the youngster wasn’t allowed to use a knife unsupervised, so she would buy pre-cut veggies from the grocery store.
The now 24-year-old chef from Bridgewater, N.S. is leading the Culinary Youth Team Canada as they prepare to compete in the IKA Culinary Olympics in Stuttgart, Germany in February.
The Culinary Olympics, like their namesake, are held every four years and involve teams from all over the world competing in a variety of events over several days. Rafuse had plans to compete in Luxembourg four years ago but found out days before the event that the age cuttoff for the Olympics had changed, leaving him out of the kitchen.
“I didn’t want that to be the reason my journey ended; I was just too old. So I wanted to see it through to the end and if that meant moving onto a different role outside of being a competitor I was ready to face that.”
So, he became team captain to eight other young chefs.
Rafuse and Jacob Brandt, another teammate whose specialty is pastries, began planning menus this fall with help from the team’s six coaches for the two events: a three-course meal for 70 people and a buffet for 12.
“It was a lot of sitting down, looking through books and brainstorming ideas, components that could be on those plates that would put us a step higher than where we were in Luxembourg so
we can get on the podium and get those two gold medals around our necks.”
They have had about half a dozen practice runs of each menu at the Culinary Institute of Canada school at Holland College in Charlottetown, with tickets costing $25. They have plans for about a dozen more before the Olympics, said Rafuse.
“We’d like to fit as many as we can. It just builds more confidence, makes the team more solid and definitely gives us a better game plan before we get into it.”
The team is in a strong position with the practice and the guidance they’ve gotten from the six coaches, said Rafuse.
“They all deserve a majority of the credit. Without them we wouldn’t really know what direction to take this in.”
As for what he’ll do after the competition, Rafuse might consider teaching, something he had never thought about before being captain, he said.
“I’d like to hope that this has given me an opportunity to get my foot in the door a bit with the college. I enjoy being a part of this community in the building and all the people that work here are amazing and helpful and generous, so I’d like to continue to be a part of it.”
But even with his expertise, Rafuse says his mom still gets a little nervous when he reaches for the knives.