If you’re a Vancouver firefighter, you might be clamouring to get on a shift with Michael Varga.
While the Port Moody resident is an experienced first responder, these days, it is his skills in the kitchen that are getting all the attention — he’s a contestant on season five of Master Chef Canada.
Now, the country is learning what many in Vancouver’s Fire Hall No. 4 have known for years.
During a recent shift, Varga prepared a meal for his fellow crew members of ahi tuna club sandwiches served on brioche buns with jalapeño-bacon jam he made from scratch along with a roasted red pepper aioli and onion rings.
And he did that working within a budget — usually about $10 per person as firefighters pay for their own food (“People think our food is paid for. It is not.”) — and for people that don’t mind telling him when a dish isn’t working.
“If they don’t like something, you hear about it,” he told The Tri-City News. “It’s like the [TV show] Shark Tank.”
But even for someone accustomed to the pressures that comes with firefighting — let alone cooking for firefighters — appearing on Master Chef Canada presents its own type of stress. In the first episode of the season, which aired Tuesday, 21 contestants were whittled down to 12 during an hour-long cook-off that saw many sent home before they could even finish preparing their meals. The judges based their decisions on technique, cleanliness and whether a dish is coming together in the appropriate amount of time, with cooks who are not making the grade receiving a tap on the shoulder before they are asked to leave.
“When you see them coming around, you don’t know if they are coming to talk to you or if they are coming to tap you out,” Varga said. “It got real. It got real pretty quick.”
The first few minutes of the contest were stressful, he said, but he quickly found his groove, producing Moroccan-spiced lamb popsicles with a North African risotto and pomegranate that the judges enjoyed enough to send him on to the final 12 and the next episode.
Varga, whose mother is from Egypt, said he is drawn to the spice profiles often found in North Africa and the Middle East. For his Master Chef Canada audition in Vancouver, he prepared Moroccan tacos with braised short ribs, roasted beets, a haloumi salsa and humus.
He also learned a lot from his father, a self-taught chef from Hungary, whom Varga helped a lot in the kitchen when he was growing up.
Master Chef Canada is not the first time the 39-year-old father of two has showed off his cooking skills on television. In 2016, he was on Chopped Canada’s Fired Up episode, which featured firefighters from across the country competing for a $10,000 prize. Varga won the contest and said he has enjoyed his TV experiences so much that he dreams of one day having a show where he visits fire halls around the world to see what his fellow smoke-eaters are cooking.
“This has just got me so excited about cooking,” he said. “I would love to showcase what firefighters are doing in the kitchen and hear their stories.”
The meals produced at his fire hall are an important part of the shift, he said, noting the camaraderie that comes with making and sharing food together. He added that there are many great cooks working as firefighters and he has learned a lot from his fellow crew members.
• The next episode of Master Chef Canada will air April 10 on CTV.
gmckenna@tricitynews.com
@gmckennaTC
