The city’s culinary elite gathered en masse last Thursday night to attend Vancouver‘s edition of Canada’s Great Kitchen Party.
As the last of nine regional qualifiers held across the country for the Canadian Culinary Championship, this prestigious event is equally focused on fundraising to provide accessible opportunities for young Canadians to achieve excellence in their pursuits of sport, music, and food.
The late and dearly loved Vancouver food writer Andrew Morrison, co-founder of Scout Magazine, played a key role in Canada’s Great Kitchen Party for 14 years.
To kick off the evening’s celebrations, national Kitchen Party lead judge James Chatto took the podium to honour the significant impact of Andrew’s life and announce the creation of the Andrew Morrison Memorial Award in his name.
Andrew and his wife Michelle Sproule launched Scout Magazine in 2008, the preeminent online guide to what’s new and good in Vancouver.
A year prior, James enthusiastically invited Andrew to be the Vancouver senior judge for Gold Medal Plates (now known as Canada’s Great Kitchen Party), a role he shared with wine and food expert and educator Sid Cross.
Andrew was a beloved member of the Kitchen Party team and held the position until he passed away in 2021.
He revelled in the challenge: impartially judging events and passionately sharing his knowledge and honest feedback with regional chefs in Vancouver, Victoria, and Kelowna, and at the Canadian Culinary Championship.
With an audience of well over 500 guests plus 100s of chefs, judges, and volunteers, the inaugural 2022 Andrew Morrison Memorial Award was presented on stage to Vancouver Community College culinary arts student, Tsai Rung “Sara” Lee.
This bursary further bolsters Andrew’s legacy of championing small independent restaurants and rising stars in the culinary industry, and will be awarded each year to a deserving culinary student from VCC.
In addition to the culinary competition and bursary presentation, funds were raised for two national beneficiaries and one Vancouver charity: Spirit North, empowering indigenous youth through sport and play; MusiCounts, providing musical instruments to schools; and Fresh Roots, growing schoolyard farms to cultivate meaningful connections between students and the food they eat.
Local beneficiary Fresh Roots raised $8,400 in raffle-ticket sales alone.
This year’s fundraising numbers are still being tallied from all nine 2022 Canada’s Great Kitchen Party events held in different cities across the country, not to mention the Canadian Culinary Championship yet to take place in Ottawa on February 3-4, 2023.
The organization has raised over 17 million dollars to date, creating equally accessible opportunities for young Canadians to be extraordinary.