5th Chef's Challenge to heat up Buskirk

Chef Erika Yochum, co-owner of Feast Bakery Cafe, spends her days creating dishes with fresh, local produce.

“I just love food,” Yochum said. “I’ll dream up a whole meal and then try to make it.”
Yochum’s love for cooking began during her childhood when she baked for her neighbors with her Easy-Bake Oven.

When she was 19 she opened her first cafe, and she has experimented with different avenues and styles of cooking for years. In summer 2010, she opened Feast Bakery Cafe in Bloomington.

Yochum said her greatest culinary inspiration is fresh produce. This week, that was fresh-picked basil and tomatoes brought to her by a local farmer.

She has developed a relationship with many farmers and ranchers in the community by working with the Bloomington Farmers’ Market. She now supports them by incorporating their produce into Feast’s menu.

Though Yochum has had no classical culinary training, she said she uses this to her advantage and isn’t constrained by the rules and traditions that formal training can create. Rather, she relies on her intuition to invent dishes.

Yochum will put her culinary skills to the test Sunday in a competition with two other local chefs — Damian Esposito of the Indiana Memorial Union and Lake Hubbard of Uptown Café — to create a winning dish.

The Fifth Annual Chefs’ Challenge will benefit the Community Kitchen of Monroe County, a nonprofit with a mission to eliminate hunger in Bloomington and its surrounding areas.

The three participating chefs will have one hour to create a dish to be judged by three local culinary aficionados, including Chef David Tallent of Restaurant Tallent and winner of the competition for the last two years.

A secret local ingredient will be announced at the beginning of the competition, and the chefs will have to incorporate it into their work. They are to produce a dish that will be judged on creativity, taste, presentation and, most importantly, how the surprise ingredient is used.

Chef Tallent’s advice to the competitors this year is to work quickly and not to cook a dish they haven’t prepared before.

“Keep it simple,” Tallent said. “And stay true to what you do.”

Tim Clougher, assistant director of Community Kitchen of Monroe County, said he wants the competition to help people relate to the staff at the Community Kitchen as they prepare meals for the community.

“Every day, our staff and volunteers come up with a meal for over 300 people based on what we have, and that’s the same as it is for a lot of families that are struggling with hunger,” Clougher said. “They may not have all the components in a pantry to make a certain dish, and they have to improvise and come up with what they can based on what they have.”

As for Yochum, she said she hopes not only to take home the “Golden Spatula” but also to raise money for a good cause.

“This is a great community fundraiser and Bloomington seems to be such a food-centered town,” Yochum said. “It’s a perfect event, and I just think it’s going to be really fun.”