Local chef Aubrey Creed, 21, of Festus is competing this week with some of the world’s top culinary artists at the World Food Championships underway in Dallas, after having won a golden ticket to the event at the WFC Show Me Series held in September in St. Louis.
“I like creating dishes and working with flavors and textures to make something new,” said Creed, head chef at her family’s Pedal’n Pi wood-fired pizza/bicycle shop in Crystal City. “Food has been No. 1 my whole life. My whole family cooks. I love to use a plate as my canvas.”
At the competition, which runs from Nov. 9-13, Creed will compete in the rice/noodle category at WFC and will have 60 minutes to create her signature dish – a rendition of an heirloom Lebanese rice pilaf recipe inspired by her late grandmother, Linda Nell Surdyke.
Master judges will appraise her dish against 30 competitors for a chance to advance to the Top Ten round.
Jack W. “Mac” MacMurray III, the 2021 WFC World Bacon Champion and executive chef at Old Hickory Golf Club in St. Peters and one of three judges at the WFC Show Me Series in St. Louis, said he was impressed with Creed’s dish and her cooking skills.
“(It) was exquisitely plated,” he said. “It was a simple but beautiful presentation. Her knowledge and execution are far beyond her years. Importantly, she has a passion for this.”
Dubbed “The Ultimate Food Fight & Flavor Fest Experience,” the WFC, in its 10th year, is considered the largest food sport competition, according to its website. A springboard for up-and-coming culinary stars and home cooks, the 2021 event drew chefs from 42 states and six countries who vied to become category champions and compete at the Final Table for the title of World Food Champion and win $100,000.
This year’s category champions will face off in early 2023 at the Final Table at a yet-to-be-announced location. Besides rice/noodle, a new category in 2022, the categories include: seafood, steak, dessert, vegetarian, burger, bacon, soup and BBQ.
“The rice/noodle Top Ten round at the WFC competition in Dallas will be increasingly difficult as the chefs will be asked to innovatively create a recipe that includes an infusion of ground veal,” said Timothy Christian, president of UnLtd Ventures, a state partner with WFC and organizer of the WFC Show Me Series in St. Louis, Springfield and Waynesville.
Master judges will “assess the execution, appearance and taste in scoring the plates,” Christian added.
Creed is among 11 Missourians who won golden tickets and are first-time competitors at WFC. Nine Missouri chefs who competed in their respective category’s Top Ten round in 2021 are returning to the global cooking stage.
Christian, who emceed the WFC Show Me Series in St. Louis, said, “Aubrey was a go-getter. She showed up ready to win with her ingredients, a world-class recipe and a well-thought-out execution plan. She handily won the rice/noodle category.”
Creed said she wasn’t sure what to expect going into the event.
“I went into the St. Louis competition with the attitude that I was going to do what I love and have fun,” Creed said. “I told myself something will come from this and to just see what happens.”
Cheered on by family and friends at the Show Me Series cook off, Creed’s team included two sous chefs – her mother, Rene Creed, and brother, Axel Creed, 19.
Aubrey Creed said her late grandmother taught her how to prepare traditional Lebanese recipes and was the inspiration for her signature dish that won the rice/noodle category at the Show Me Series competition and that she is preparing in the opening round at WFC.
Rene Creed said her mother enjoyed cooking.
“With 10 kids, my mother spent a lot of time cooking,” Rene Creed said. “She loved to let the grandchildren help her cook and was always willing to teach them in the kitchen. At the end of her life, she and Aubrey often cooked together.”
“I knew the week before the Show Me Series that I wanted to do something to honor my grandmother,” Aubrey Creed said. “My recipe came together four hours before the competition, though all along I planned to use fresh grape leaves from my grandmother’s vine.”
Creed’s Lebanese great-great-grandparents brought the grape vine from Syria when they immigrated to the U.S. in the 1930s.
“That vine has been a staple in my family’s cuisine for generations,” Creed said.
Her golden-ticket-winning Lebanese rice pilaf was topped with maghmour, which Creed described as a traditional Lebanese eggplant/tomato stew to which she added Japanese sweet potato, beet puree, roasted pine nuts, radish microgreens and pomegranate. It was served atop fresh grape leaves.
At Pedal’n Pi, Creed’s culinary repertoire spans more than wood-fired pizzas. Other periodic offerings, often tested first at home on the palates of her seven brothers, who range from 2 to 19 years old, include French onion soup in a sourdough bread bowl, chicken and dumplings, chicken wings, truffle salads and desserts, such as cinnamon rolls and gooey butter cake. She recently added a new service: pop-up dinners and celebrations for private parties.
Creed said her parents’ love of cooking also inspired her to become a chef.
Father Chris Creed is a graduate of the Johnson & Wales University culinary arts program in Charlotte, N.C., and Rene Creed helped her mother prepare meals.
“I was featured in the Leader when I was in sixth grade for my cooking,” Rene Creed said.
“With eight kids in our own family, food and what we eat has always been important,” she added. “It has morphed into our holiday tradition where everyone cooks and prepares a meal to share.”
Creed, a 2019 St. Pius X High School graduate, originally majored in art and design in college and then switched to the two-year culinary program at Jefferson College.
“The first day at Jefferson College, I fell in love with the whole process of cooking,” said Creed, an American Culinary Federation-certified chef. “I was so excited to learn. I loved preparing, plating and sharing dishes.”
Creed said growing up she thought everyone’s family cooked like hers.
“I started to learn that Lebanese cooking and the grape leaves were special to my family,” she said. “Lebanese cooking is my favorite thing to do and is really close to my heart.”
Creed has what it takes to do well in the competition, Christian said.
“She has every opportunity to win with her winning attitude and skills,” he said.