“Hello, is this Ice Decor? I’m putting a team together to represent Canada at the Gelato World Cup competition in Rimini, Italy. And we think you’d be the perfect candidate to join us.”
What would you say? What’s gelato? Where’s Rimini? How did you hear about me? A thousand questions flooded my mind.
I met with James from the Bella Gelateria on West Cordova and had my first taste of Gelato. James can best be described as a visionary on steroids. Canada had never been represented at this world class event but according to him, “we can win this thing hands down.” That was the beginning of a year long journey to prepare for my first real life reality show. Five of us would come together from different disciplines; a retired chef who had many years of experience leading teams on this kind of adventure would serve as our coach, a pastry chef from a major downtown Vancouver Hotel, an instructor in culinary arts and myself the “expert in all things ice.”
Our team in Italy
But what do you do in Rimini? Those guys are serious about Gelato. They have whole schools devoted to the art of making world class gelato. Gelato is to an Italian like maple syrup is to a Canadian. And then I learned that the competition was supposed to include a savoury and a chocolate component. Oh yah, and ice, a whole three hours over the course of three days. So what’s a guy like me doing in a place like this? Five minutes with these guys and I wished I had shared cooking duties at home. I was clearly out of my element. “Oh, we’ll teach you,” they said. “Just do what we tell you.”
A taste of our adventure!
We should have known from the beginning that we were over our heads. I sure was. Lots of ambition, no experience working as a team and…oh and did I forget to mention that we didn’t have any money to do this? We talked of having fundraisers but when? Each of us was overworked and overwhelmed with year end events or running a business. Just getting ready for the February competition was going to be a challenge.
Stay tuned for the continued story next Monday…
Thank you for reading! #theicemen