Paige Hanna has a passion for food, and is an advocate for minimizing food waste. In her free time, she loves throwing down in her home kitchen, and sharing her food adventures via The Island Foodie Page blog.

The Showman Chef Series Showcases Dinner Specials By Weekly Guest Chefs

Amazing food knows no limits. While professionally trained chefs can craft culinary masterpieces that weave unique flavours, textures and diverse ingredients into edible works of art, there are many who are gifted with a natural passion and love for food.

Several weeks ago, The Showman Restaurant launched their Chef Series, and invited professional chefs and home cooks to showcase their love of amazing food and recipes on the Showman menu, for one night only.  To date, there have been several familiar faces on the Chef Series line-up. And, we decided to ask them all the same three questions to learn a bit more about who they are and what motivates them.

Paige Hanna

Showman Chef Series Featured Dish:

Honey BBQ Jerked Chicken served with Pineapple Fried Rice and Pineapple Mango Salad with Bacon Wrapped Plantain

Paige’s featured night has passed, but be sure to visit her IG pages to see what she will be up to, next. IG @theislandfoodiepage @paigecrys

Q: What excites you most about cooking?

A: What excites me most about cooking is being able to mix things up. I loosely follow recipes so if I’ve added too much, made it too salty or watery, I can play around until I get the best outcome. I also realize sometimes I can’t find all the ingredients I’m looking for, so swapping out for substitutes makes it fun. Here I get to tackle food waste too. What could I make with what’s in my pantry? What kind of local ingredients could I find? Cooking is so versatile, that’s why I love it!

Q: What is one tip that you would share with other home cooks?

A: Use what ya gat! As a food waste advocate, I’m always going to encourage you to use up what you have first to prevent food wastage. There have been a lot of times I’ve taken regular household ingredients, one would normally have in their pantry, and through different techniques, made an elaborate meal out of it.  Take potatoes for instance, swap your baked potato out for a Hasselback-styled potato. There are lots of ways you can find inspiration and even learn a bit more about different ways of cooking. My favourites are Pinterest and YouTube!

Q: What is one ingredient that you think every kitchen should have?

A: EGGS! As a complete source of protein, Eggs are one of those things that can be used in so many different ways. Boiled, scrambled, poached, with fried rice, unseasoned, with truffle salt, in baked goods, with a good cobb salad or in a lovely bowl of ramen, the list goes on and on.

More featured chefs will be announced soon, so be on the lookout on the Showman pages for who will be sharing their flavour packed dishes, next.