Chef's Night Out
- Jesse Sandlin of Abacrombie (on the left) strikes a tango pose.
Karin Tiffany and husband Bud, of Peter’s Inn, are ready for lobsters. 
An appetizer course is plated in the kitchen.
Host Ted Stelzenmuller (on the right) presides over the Roasted Sheep’s Heads.
Festive pink pig piñatas presage the Gold Gilded Suckling Pig course. 
A full mariachi band announces the arrival of the Chicken Tacos.
The Roasted Sheep’s Head course was accompanied by a live belly dancer to set the mood.
The piñatas were opened to reveal sunglasses for everyone.
Ted Stelzenmuller and Christie Smertycha look pleased at how the evening’s going.
From inside Jack’s Bistro on Nov. 17 of last year, a strange clamor filtered through the windows and doors: laughter, thwacks and thuds, the lively tones of a mariachi band— even the buzz of a chain saw.
The culprits? Some 21 of Baltimore’s premier chefs, sommeliers and pastry chefs, who are attending an over-the-top dinner party thrown by Ted Stelzenmuller, chef/owner of Jack’s Bistro in Canton. Guests included Duff Goldman of Charm City Cakes and Food Network’s “Ace of Cakes,” Jerry Pellegrino of Corks Restaurant, Jill Snyder of Woodberry Kitchen (who was then at Red Maple and featured on Bravo’s 2008 series “Top Chef”) and Jesse Sandlin of Abacrombie (and a current contestant on this season’s “Top Chef”).
Anyone who knows the rambunctious 35-year-old Stelzenmuller— who has worked as a chef for 11 years and creates notoriously outré dishes such as macaroni and cheese with chocolate— would not put it past the man to cook up (pardon the pun) such an evening. As he puts it, “It’s the party that we wish someone would book us for! You know, spare no expense. We wanted to have the wildest night.”
Stelzenmuller opened the dinner at 6 p.m. with cocktails, a welcome speech and bacon, rather than traditional bread, setting the quirky tone that would carry through to the rest of the evening.
“Wild” is putting it mildly for the 10 courses that followed, each unique and each served with its own flair or accompanying entertainment. First came Salmon in Newspaper, followed by Maine Lobster Roasted in Salt, carved by Ben Erjavec of The Oceanaire Seafood Room— everyone had to put on a lobster bib for that one.
But the third course, Rabbit Surprise— sous vide rabbit skewered on two Civil War-era swords— really brought down the house. As the rabbit was carried out, local band The Expotentials swept in from behind a curtain, blaring the song “White Rabbit.”
With the arrival of the rabbit, Stelzenmuller says, all the barriers were down and every chef was just plain having fun. That was his goal for the night: to get many of Baltimore’s major chefs together and acquainted, if they didn’t already know each other. “We don’t always meet like we used to,” explains Stelzenmuller, “and it’s important to have that sense of community.”
Pellegrino agrees that the dinner party was the perfect way to get the whole “group” together again. “It’s a group of us, a gang, all of us ‘professionals’... in quotes,” says Pellegrino, laughing. “We all try to find time to see each other, but it’s not easy because we all have crazy schedules.”
Throughout the night, Stelzenmuller made sure to keep the chefs involved, even having them switch places halfway through the dinner— though keeping a roomful of chefs away from the cooking was quite a feat. “A bunch of people kept popping their heads in the kitchen,” Stelzenmuller recalls. “They wanted to see what was going on!”
An Arabian belly dancer with a scimitar accompanied the fifth course, Whole Roasted Sheep’s Head served on cous-cous. “I said, ‘With all the talent in the room, I think you guys are going to know what to do with this,’” says Stelzenmuller. “And I just set it down and walked away.” Naturally, three chefs stood up and started carving.
For the Chicken Taco dish, a mariachi band in full regalia made its entrance, along with a pig pi—ata the chefs smashed in preparation for the next course, Gold Gilded Suckling Pig. Out of the pi—ata cascaded a multitude of sunglasses, which everyone put on as a tribute to the most extravagant dish of the night: an entire 30-pound pig covered in gleaming, edible sheets of 14-karat gold.
Other courses included Roasted Pheasant, Veal Tongue and Whole Roasted Hudson Valley Foie Gras. To complete the night, Stelzenmuller served “The Biggest Baked Alaska Ever,” a 4-by-3-foot concoction made of meringue, ice cream, macerated pineapple and strawberries. Unable to keep herself out of the kitchen, Snyder helped make the meringue for the dessert, which another chef then cut with a chain saw. “It was really loud and there was meringue everywhere,” says Stelzenmuller with a grin.
For Pellegrino, the fact that none of the chefs knew what Stelzenmuller would whip up for the night made everything even better. “Everything was a surprise. We had no expectation of what was going to happen,” says Pellegrino. “It was kept top secret the whole way, probably down to cutting the Baked Alaska with a chain saw.”
Stelzenmuller himself was continuously back in the kitchen with his hands in all the pots. “Oh, I cooked with everybody,” he explains. “I’m definitely a hands-on guy.”
Most of the dishes for the night were his own creations, which he planned over the course of several months, adding and subtracting from a long, evolving list of ideas. “Other chefs here would throw in ideas, and we’d get excited and have to scale it back,” he says.
By the end of the night, stomachs stuffed and new friendships forged, the lively bunch of chefs took a “Sergeant Pepper”-style group photo out front. (A few pigs’ heads may or may not have made it into the picture.)
Sandlin agrees that the dinner was a hit. “It was just a fun night— everyone let loose,” she says. “I was dancing at one point with the belly dancer, I think!”
The carousing continued on into the night until the food and wine ran out. With the dinner party such a success, Stelzenmuller looks forward to planning the next one. “It was the greatest party in the world ever!” he says, only half-jokingly.
