Who will be the 2021 Golden Basket winner? Here’s how the cooking competition works

The annual Golden Basket cooking competition is back for another year, with nonprofit Appalachian Food Works once again at the helm. This year’s event takes a hybrid approach, combining the in-person format of 2019’s event with last year’s virtual format.

This year’s event allows the organization to support both restaurants and at least one farmers market directly, according to Appalachian Food Works founder and executive director Travis Lesser.

“By doing a combined format this year, we can get folks into the restaurants and farmers market, while highlighting our local farms and producers that are such a vital component to our economy here in Centre County,” he said in a recent release.

This year’s Golden Basket competition kicked off July 8, with the five participating restaurants offering a special menu item, incorporating ingredients sourced by Appalachian Food Works, through July 14. Over the course of the week, community members can visit the competing restaurants — which include Happy Valley Chef, Pine Grove Hall, RE Farm Cafe and Valley Girl Sweets Bake House & Gift Shop — and then go online to vote for their favorite menu items at www.appalachianfoodworks.org.

The three restaurants with the most votes will go on to participate in the Golden Basket finals at North Atherton Farmers Market on July 24.

“The three finalists will prepare 200 bites,” Lesser said. “People will come through and sample each dish and then people will be able to vote with tickets. There will be two judges with votes as well. The peoples’ vote will be taken into consideration along with the judges’ votes to determine the winner.”

For the final competition round, chefs must source their ingredients from North Atherton Farmers Market vendors and Lesser hinted at a potential surprise challenge.

“There’s a possibility of a secret ingredient in the final round. It could present itself. We have to keep everyone on their toes,” he said.

Last year’s Golden Basket competition was entirely virtual, asking community members to visit competition restaurants on their own and place their votes from home. Revival Kitchen took home the top prize and Lesser credits the restaurant’s creativity and flexibility for their win.

“They did this peach panna cotta,” he said, “and they could make a bunch of them and they left them at places with coolers, so people could come in and buy them. They had a very pandemic-ready model, putting things where people already were, so they could vote, and it made it very convenient for people.”

For the first year, the event will also act as a fundraiser for Appalachian Food Works, with event merchandise available for purchase on the organization’s website and at the July 24 event. As the organization looks to create more transparency in local food supply chains and further bolster the agricultural economy through expanded capacity, Lesser stresses the need for community support, especially as Appalachian Food Works looks to move into an expanded, new location in the near future.

“We’re trying to create change in our food supply chains. We’re trying to create more transparency. We’re trying to create more support for our agricultural economy. This is our mission. In order to get to that, though, we need to be able to scale up and continue to support these producers in a way that helps them get their products out the door and money in their pockets,” he said. “The way we’re able to do that is by increasing their capacity; we’ve already done that to a degree by purchasing our refrigerated truck. Now, as we look to expanding our space, we are going to be incurring more expenses along with that, and we need these funds and support from our community that values fresh food, food safety and supporting local agriculture and food producers.”

To learn more about Appalachian Food Works and the 2021 Golden Basket competition, visit www.appalachianfoodworks.org.

This story was originally published July 9, 2021 at 7:00 AM.