Chef Susur Lee is in E-town from March 14th to 18th!

There is high excitement in the culinary community as Chef Lee, one of the most acclaimed chefs in North America, begins a five-day intensive teaching program at NAIT, where the master chef and restaurateur will be teaching students in the culinary arts program.

The program is part of the Hokanson Chef In Residence program, which kicked off in 2009 with Vancouver chef Rob Feenie, and then again in 2010 with Toronto chef David Adjey.

Chef Lee's resume is exhaustive, beginning at the age of 16 when he was an apprentice at Hong Kong's  renowned Peninsula Hotel. He later moved to Toronto, opening his first restaurant, Lotus, in 1987. Since then, Chef Lee has been an international culinary consultant, and is at the helm of several restaurants in Toronto,  Washington, New York and Singapore.

The restaurant and travel guide, Zagat, has dubbed Lee a "culinary genius." Food and Wine magazine, which calls Lee one of the Ten Chefs of the Millennium, alongside other food artists such as Ferran Adira of Spain's Bulli restaurant.

I have the great good fortune to be observing Chef Lee this afternoon as he instructs students at NAIT. Then I get to interview him! If you've got questions for him, tell me right now and I'll try to slip them into the conversation. Check the Journal website Tuesday for my story, along with a photo gallery from this afternoon's demo.

The picture at right is from the cover of Lee's cookbook, co-written with Jacob Richler.

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Celeb Chef David Adjey in E-town for The Opener

Celebrity Chef David Adjey is shooting  a segment of his Food Network show The Opener, which follows newbie restaurateurs as they open their brand new eateries. He's working with the as-yet-to-open Edmonton restaurant, Pampa, a Brazilian steakhouse at 9929-109th Street.

"It's very showy, it's very entertaining," says Adjey of Pampa. "They've got outfits and they come out with swords and they've got this marble salad bar that holds a hundred items that (the owner) drove up from Brazil. I think he's got something really unique.

"But he's in way over his head, he's out of dough...I've got to help this guy, get him ready."

At the helm of Pampa is grill master Oscar Mauricio Lopez and Brazilian chef Joao Antonio Dachery. The restaurant was scheduled to open in February, but Adjey says that will be tough to achieve without the paint on the walls still being wet.

The Opener's Pampa episode is the last one in the second season of this Food Network show, which airs every Wednesday at 9 p.m.

"We're going out with a bang on this season," says Adjey. "This young guy has (invested), with his family and friends, a million dollars and a million is a lot of money to lose. There is a lot of stuff on the line for this guy, and that's why I'm here."

That's Adjey at right in this photo supplied by Food Network Canada. You will also know him from his popular program, Restaurant Makeover, also on Food Network.

Stay tuned. I'm going on the set of The Opener this week to watch as Adjey counsels Pampa owners on how to get this project off the ground.

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