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Annual Chef’s Showcase succulent from walls to meals
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Collier County’s citizens are known far and wide for their charitable causes.
Once again, more than 200 generous people dug deep into their pocketbooks and bought tickets at $75 per person to attend or simply support Marco Island’s annual Chef’s Showcase held Sunday evening at the posh Marco Island Yacht Club.
This year, the event’s organizers, the Marco Island Area Chamber of Commerce and the Marco Island Chapter of the Florida Restaurant Association, decided to have 11 of the island’s top chefs. They each prepared signature snacks and presented them to grazing guests from their individual stations, in lieu of the event’s yearly, sit-down dinner marked by gargantuan gastronomic excess, explained Vicki Williams, Chamber marketing director and event co-organizer.
Williams said, “It will be a longer opportunity for people to walk around and sample the different treats.”
Guests arriving at the appointed hour of 6 p.m. and wending their way to the impeccably white steps leading to the Marco Island Yacht Club’s entrance, were ceremoniously greeted with friendly handshakes abetted by smiles from each and all the Yacht Club’s officers who wore impeccably white, full (medals and ribbons) dress whites! This reporter was suitably impressed by the display of seafaring splendor.
Equally splendid was the MIYC clubhouse. Several levels at the rear of the structure were framed by impeccably white-painted railings, leading down to pristine white stone steps to the lowest patio level overlooking the Big Marco River flowing underneath the Jolley Bridge. It evoked to me, grand, elegant and stately ocean liners, and if coincidence caused a guttural toot to be heard by a passing sailboat I swear I would have dropped then and there! ‘Nuff said.
Gee Alice, after all that it would seem that the food before us would pale in comparison? Nah! It really was excellent from this reporter’s first stop:
Café de Marco’s pan-seared sesame-encrusted saku tuna squares threaded on mini skewers and drizzled with teriyaki ginger sauce. It was served by owner Sandy and Executive Chef Kenneth Vandereecken who were garbed in impeccably white chef’s tunic.
On to the Paradise Shrimp Company station manned by the new owners, brothers Bill and Scott Young, who were serving up scads of their special shrimp to Miss Dottie and her eve’s five Bob Sandy, who is the Marco Eagle’s general manager.
Down the line, a talented trio of chefs, notably Laura Beth Owen of Bayside Restaurant, were offering unique little tuna nuggets creatively covered in finely shredded cauliflower, carrot and broccoli (rather than mundane bread crumbs) and flash fried, solo creative.
It goes without saying, Collier House Executive Chef Peter Marek’s delicate, Mahi over a mound of Asian slaw with coconut curry sauce snuck up on the palate with subtle layers of flavor — awesome!
Ever so European, Chef Alfred Shingle was doing what he does best: feather light potato pancakes embellished with smoked Norwegian salmon topped with sour cream. So lovely, like Mozart!
Intrepid Tara was audaciously presenting Lamb Lollipops, impeccably grilled a medium rare, succulent shade of pink — succeeding where lesser chefs would not — but then again that wouldn’t be Tara’s Steak and Lobster House, n’est-ce pas?
Better late than never, I always say, and Blu Fusion’s Firecracker Shrimp capped the evening’s food foray for this reporter. Aha! not to worry. Desserts and a coffee bar set up in the Club’s upstairs’ dining room awaited guests who judiciously heeded the warning about saving. Dahling, there were thousands of petit fours in every color and flavor, many of them created by Fanny Bustamonte, the talented Sous Chef of the Marco Island Yacht Club. ‘Nuff said!
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