5 Courses with Peter Clark

When judging a cooking competition, it's hard to know whether it's fair to chat up the chef, or whether it's best to pretend to be invisible. So after an hour of professional hush during the New England Regional Almost Famous Chef Competition, it was a relief when Peter Clark, the fourth of the eight student chefs to begin, asked us to crank up the volume. Seconds into his homemade pasta dough, Clark, a student at the New England Culinary Institute, grinned at the gaggle of us with our clipboards and non-committal smiles. "Why is everybody so quiet?" he asked, cool as a breeze from his hometown of Vail, Colorado. Clark kept chatting and chopping as he produced his signature dish: pan-roasted halibut with handmade Swiss chard ravioli, pumpkin-chestnut puree, and a cider-beet reduction. His confidence totally warmed the kitchen at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, local home for the regional round of this national contest, and it helped secure him first place. On March 5, he goes to the Culinary Institute of America in Napa, where he'll represent New England in the Almost Famous Chef finals.
Were you nervous at all when you started to cook at the event? By the day of the competition, I had made that exact dish - with that exact sauce, that exact presentation, for the exact number of portions required - at least eight times. That doesn't even begin to count the number of times I made the dish with slight variations. So, at the competition, I was really comfortable with my dish. Practice is what set me apart from the other competitors who were still trying to work out their dishes. The competition was stiff, though.

You did seem calm, even with all the cameras, the judges, and the pressure. Did any of it get to you? Not really. I'd put in the time and effort to win. Plus, I've been doing cooking competitions since high school. I took first place in the nationals for the ProStart competition in high school.

How did you come to cooking? My dad was the chef at home, and Sundays at our house meant an all-day cooking project. Handmade pasta, rotisserie chicken.... I loved it. And when I was in high school, in Vail, I was filling out an application for a job at a hot dog stand. And the chef who became my mentor, Paul Ferzacca, grabbed me and said, "Don't work here! Come with me, and I will teach you how to cook!"

So, how did you celebrate winning? I crashed at the hotel, and the next morning I went to school. The chefs at NECI were stoked for me. And then I had to start practicing for the finals. This time I have four hours to prepare a dish for 200 people. My ingredient list was due last week.

Did TV influence you as a chef? I don't know. I watch the occasional Iron Chef, but it doesn't shape how I cook. You have to be ready to present yourself and your food and stay focused on your own work, not on the camera.