Two graduates of Holland College's Culinary Institute of Canada will represent Prince Edward Island in an episode of Global TV's new series The Next Great Chef on January 27th. Jesse Fraser, 23, and Angela Wall, 21, will compete against each other for the opportunity to win the national title, a battle that is determined in the one-hour season finale February 25th.

The 11-part series features one province per episode with two young chefs vying against each other to make it to the eleventh episode. A mentor accompanies each chef. The mentor is permitted to offer advice regarding everything from the development of the menu to the serving of the food; but isn't allowed to touch or taste anything. Fraser and Wall's mentors were both from the Culinary Institute of Canada. Chef Hans Anderegg worked with Fraser and Chef Blair Zinck worked with Wall for several weeks before the show's taping in preparation for the competition.

The competition required about 60 hours of preparation each, but both mentors agreed that the end result was a wonderful opportunity for their prot?g?es to gain national exposure.

"The show isn't going to teach you how to cook," Zinck explained. "It's mostly documentary style and interviews, and a little bit of insight into that person, which is unique. It's always the high profile chefs getting recognition, so it's great to see the students get it."

The series is actually the provincial level of an annual competition sponsored by Knorr and the Canadian Culinary Federation. Knorr introduced cash prizes totaling $9,000 in 2004 and The Next Great Chef series last spring. The introduction of the televised component was very attractive to many young chefs.

Fraser, who is from Ajax, Ontario, says that he relished the opportunity to compete, and the fact that it was going to be televised just added to the excitement.

"The Knorr competition itself holds a certain amount of prestige-I'd go so far as to say that it's probably the best national junior competition. With the addition of the TV show, the structure became even more complicated and challenging," he says.

"I felt very excited and confident," notes Fraser, recalling last spring when he won the preliminary competition. "We did an interview right after the competition had finished, and it was all so surreal. It was the first competition I had ever entered, and we all knew that the top two were going to be on the show, and honestly, I had no idea what was going to happen. It was like a movie with a great ending."

Mentors Anderegg and Zinck said there was no rivalry between them as they prepared Angela and Jesse for the competition. In fact, in the months leading up to the competition, each mentor found himself providing advice to the other's prot?g?e, a situation they were both very comfortable with.

"It was a win/win situation," Anderegg explains, "both competitors were from the school, and we knew that the school was well represented."

In the competition, each chef is given a black box containing ingredients that they must include in their meals. They have no idea what ingredients will be in the box until they open it, and then have only a few minutes to plan and write out their menu based on those items and items that they know in advance will be in their pantries. Part of the preparation for the competition is the development of templates that they will be able to use with the mystery protein, vegetables and other black box items to create their dishes.

"You have a staple template that you build with," Zinck explains, "once they knew what their black box items were, we could take those and put them in with items from the kitchen."

One might think that the pressures of competition would be exacerbated by the presence of a film crew, but the two mentors said the crew was very professional and the studio kitchen was ideal for the task at hand, so the competitors were able to function as they would in any other competition.

"The studio was well set up," Zinck notes. "They let us do our own thing and worked around us. I was a little worried that they would try to pep things up, because Hans and I in the kitchen are a little laid back as opposed to some. I was afraid that they would find us a little boring; but it's only because we're both well organized. I don't think we've panicked since the 1970s!"

Fraser says that he became so focused that he was unaware of his surroundings.

"I can't remember any big surprises during taping, I guess I was kind of oblivious. It was a lot of pressure, and you get tunnel vision."

Angela Wall, who hails from Halifax, Nova Scotia, is now working at Vancouver's award-winning West Restaurant, named in the Ten of the Best, Worldwide list by the UK Sunday Independent. Although she enjoyed the experience, she found competition in front of the cameras a little more demanding than usual.

"I was excited about the competition, and relieved that my hard work had paid off," she says. "It was different because of the added stress of being constantly filmed. The thing that shocked me most of all was how they were able to take an annual culinary competition and turn it into a reality TV show."

Edi Osghian, Producer of The Next Great Chef, says the duo represented the province and the Culinary Institute of Canada well.

"Both Jesse and Angela were impressive competitors," Osghian notes. "They displayed unprecedented devotion and the results they achieved in the kitchen were amazing. Rarely can one see that level of creativity and knowledge coming from such young cooks. There was one winner that night - the culinary future of Canada."

So who won the competition? To find that out, you'll have to watch The Next Great Chef on Global Television January 27th. Check local listings for the time. To find out more about the show and the young chefs who participated (including another Culinary Institute of Canada graduate, Chris Stewart, in the New Brunswick episode), visit www.thenextgreatchef.com.