OXFORD,
Miss. – Mari-leen “Linkie” Marais, pastry chef for Ole Miss Catering at
the University of Mississippi, won Grand Champion in the eighth annual
Top Chef Competition sponsored by Aramark Corp.
Hosted earlier
this semester at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., the
event fielded 10 chefs among culinary staff from colleges and
universities in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee.
Marais brought home a $500 cash prize, Forschner knife set, an engraved
glass keepsake and regional bragging rights.
This was Marais’
first-ever chef competition. With her background as a pastry chef, one
challenge she faced was the switch to general cooking. “To suddenly be
thrown in with executive chefs, people who work with ‘food food’ every
day, was intimidating,” she said.
Each participant received a mystery box of ingredients to use in preparing a meal from prep to finish in four hours. All contestants were given a different selection of ingredients. Marais’ box contained fresh salmon, portobello mushrooms, andouille sausage, red beans, basmati rice, red onions, baby spinach, pineapple and feta cheese.
Once contestants learned the contents of their boxes, they had one evening to come up with individual menus. Marais decided on the following: Boursin Cheese Crab Meat Dumplings; Chicken and Andouille Sausage Gumbo; Baby Spinach Salad with Pecans, Feta Cheese and Dried Cranberries topped with Roasted Portobello Mushrooms, Red Onions and Raspberry Vinaigrette; Honey Glazed Baked Salmon with a Strawberry and Grape Tomato Salsa served with Vegetable Rice Pilaf and Squash Medley; Pineapple Upside-Down Cake; and Caribbean Bread Pudding.
Throughout the cook-off, Marais said she had to rely on instinct.
“Unlike a regular competition where you actually get to practice ahead of time, you don’t,” she said. “You don’t have recipes. You don’t have anything. You have to pull things out of your head, and if it works, it works, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Thank goodness it worked.”
There was another twist. Besides creating the recipes, contestants also had to prepare 500 1-2 ounce servings of each dish. This alone was a challenge, Marais said.
“It was all an adrenaline rush,” she said. “When I got through with the competition, my whole body felt like I had been running a marathon.”
Judging the competition were four formal judges whose scores were tabulated along with a popular vote from students who were called in as taste-testers.
Marais was exhilarated when she heard she had won. “I could not believe it,” she said. “It was a lot of fun.”
Roland Schnider, executive chef in UM’s Johnson Commons Cafeteria, recommended Marais for the competition.
“I expected her to do well, not necessarily to win, but I knew she would be in the top three,” he said.
Originally from Cape Town, South Africa, Marais began her culinary career when her family immigrated to Tupelo about 10 years ago. In Tupelo, she worked at Mount Vernon Place, making wedding cakes. She attended Itawamba Community College, then was granted a full scholarship to Mississippi University for Women, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in culinary arts.