Published: July 04, 2009 11:13 pm      

Cooking up some fun

ASHLAND — Some of the tastiest food at Summer Motion didn’t come from the numerous food vendors who were set up in Central Park on Saturday.

It was cooked up on the stage of the park’s bandstand by a couple of chefs.

Monty Lowans and Scott Sutton, both of Our Lady of Bellefonte Hospital, put on a cooking show that was reminiscent of something one might see on the Food Network.

The two worked together to whip up several succulent dishes — green salad with home-made balsamic vinaigrette dressing, summer squash stir fry, chipotle cinnamon chicken and balsamic basil garlic chicken. They let audience members sample each of them.

“Really good. Delicious, actually,” said Lewis Cross of Raceland, as he dug into the stir fry. His wife, Jenny, concurred.

Linda Moore of Ashland, lunchroom manager at Hager Elementary, said she found the salad particularly tasty. However, she said the cuisine Lowans and Sutton were preparing was probably a tad too exotic to incorporate into the school’s regular lunch fare.

The cooking show was one of a couple new events that were added to what’s traditionally been known as the Central Park portion of Summer Motion. That distinction was blurred somewhat this year since the entire festival took place in the park due to the construction on the riverfront.

Any resemblance between the show put on by Lowans, director of food and nutritional services at OLBH, and Sutton, the hospital’s executive chef, and the programs on the Food Network was purely intentional, said Chuck Charles, president of Summer Motion.

Charles said he knew there was a lot of interest in the programs on Food Network, so he approached Lowans, who had experience doing cooking TV shows in Tennessee, and Sutton about doing a show for Summer Motion.

He said the addition of the cooking show was in keeping with the mission of trying to tailor the festival to try to appeal to the widest audience possible.

Charles said the transition of moving the Summer Motion concerts from the riverfront to the park and gone exceptionally smoothly. He said he was also pleased with the way Saturday’s events were unfolding.

“We had 235 runners in the 10K race this morning, and we had a record number of car show entries,” he said. “We actually had to turn people away.”

Nancy Bockway of Huntington said she Saturday’s portion of the festival truly did offer someone for everyone in her family. Her 11-year-old daughter, Laura Byrd, was enthralled with the Ohio Championship Wrestling. Her 91-year-old-mother, Mildred Bockway, enjoyed the arts and crafts tent, she said. And, her brother loved the cooking show.

“It’s just a fun thing to do on the Fourth,” she said. “We’ve really enjoyed it.”

The only damper, so to speak, on Saturday’s activities, was the steady rain that began falling late in the afternoon and sent many folks scurrying for their cars.

Summer Motion concludes today with another fully slate of activities in the park, including a motorcycle show, the Colgate Country Showdown and the “Some Gave All” motorcycle rally honoring local soldiers who have died in war on terror.