The Competition I Never Wanted to Enter
“What began as a competition became a test of belonging, community, and the legitimacy of culinary cannabis.”
Reflections by Chef Adam Vandermey
12 minute read · Business Building
When I received the acceptance email for Ontario's first "So You Think You Can Cook with Cannabis?" competition, my first thought wasn't excitement.
It wasn't confidence.
It was simple.
"Oh shit, it's real."
For months, the competition had been an interesting idea. Then suddenly it became a date on the calendar, a stage, judges, competitors, cameras, and expectations.
More importantly, it meant putting Your Canna Chef into a spotlight we had never experienced before.
At the time, Jeanette and I were preparing for one of the biggest transitions of our lives. After years of planning, we were relocating our home and business from Southwestern Ontario to Lake Simcoe. We weren't looking for trophies. We were looking for opportunities to introduce ourselves to a new region and continue building the business we had spent five years creating.
The competition felt like one of those opportunities.
What I didn't realize at the time was that it would become much more than that.
For most of my career, I had very little interest in culinary competitions.
That surprises people.
I am competitive by nature. I enjoy doing things well. I enjoy winning.
But competitions always felt like a poor return on investment. The time, energy, preparation, and emotional bandwidth required could usually be spent serving clients, teaching classes, building systems, or creating new opportunities.
If Your Canna Chef had remained in St. Thomas, I probably never would have entered.
The competition wasn't the destination.
It was a bridge.
Or at least that's what I thought.
Then I met the other competitors.
If I'm being completely honest, I assumed I would be competing primarily against home cooks. I had spent years teaching culinary cannabis, building systems around precision dosing, speaking on panels, and serving private dining clients.
I thought I would be able to sleepwalk my way to the title.
Then I met the competition.
Talented chefs.
Creative thinkers.
Passionate cooks.
People who cared deeply about food, hospitality, and the plant itself.
That assumption disappeared quickly.
And I'm grateful it did.
The competition stopped being about winning.
It started becoming about representation.
For five years, Jeanette and I had been building a business in a space that barely existed.
We knew culinary cannabis could be done safely.
We knew it could be done professionally.
We knew it could create remarkable food and hospitality experiences.
The challenge was that there wasn't a roadmap.
There weren't established standards.
There weren't many peers.
Building in an undefined industry can be lonely.
There is always a quiet voice asking:
Am I seeing this clearly?
Am I convincing myself?
Does this actually matter?
The competition began answering those questions long before competition day.
Three days before the event, I woke up at four in the morning trying to decide whether I should turn my gallo pinto into a croquette.
After tasting it, I realized I was overthinking everything.
I sent a message to the other competitors telling them how much respect I had developed for them and how grateful I was to be sharing the stage.
It was in that moment that I knew we were going to be okay.
Whether I came first or sixth had stopped mattering.
Something bigger was happening.
A community was forming.
One of the things I'm proudest of from that experience happened before the competition even started.
Chef Terrance Tew and I had connected during the lead-up to the event. Terrance is an exceptional chef, a gold medalist, and a member of the Canadian Olympic Culinary Team. He is also someone whose skills and experiences I deeply respect.
But he was new to culinary cannabis.
So I taught him.
I walked him through infusion methods, dosing calculations, and the systems we use to create consistency and safety.
I tested his infusions.
I answered questions.
I shared what I had learned through years of mistakes, experimentation, and education.
A true competitor might have guarded that information.
I couldn't.
The legitimacy of this industry depends on standards.
If talented chefs are going to enter this space, I want them entering it with the knowledge necessary to do it properly.
I don't want people making the mistakes I made.
I want the bar to rise.
I want more people doing great work.
That mindset followed me throughout the competition.
When I look back now, I don't think about rankings.
I think about the home cooks who stood beside trained chefs and put their hearts on a plate.
I think about Chef Ted Reader, whose warmth, curiosity, and generosity reminded me that the best chefs never stop learning.
I think about Chef Alfred, who challenged all of us to think deeper about the plant itself. Terpenes, flavour profiles, authenticity, and the future of cannabis cuisine were always at the forefront of his feedback. He wasn't judging what culinary cannabis is today. He was challenging us to consider what it could become tomorrow.
I think about Michelle Litvack, whose enthusiasm and appreciation reminded me why this work matters. Watching her experience the food, ask questions, and genuinely enjoy what was being presented felt like watching the ideal guest experience unfold in real time. I think we surprised her, and perhaps others in the room, with what culinary cannabis can be when it is approached with intention, professionalism, and respect.
Most of all, I think about the realization that culinary cannabis had finally reached a point where people were taking it seriously.
Not as a novelty.
Not as a gimmick.
As cuisine.
As hospitality.
As a legitimate culinary discipline.
The menu I chose reflected that journey.
I presented food from Nicaragua, a country that changed my life.
The dishes themselves were relatively simple. Vigaron. Gallo pinto. Flavours and techniques I have been refining for over a decade.
But the menu wasn't really about food.
It was about a chapter of my life.
Nicaragua was where I learned simplicity.
It was where I rebuilt after a difficult divorce.
It was where I discovered that incredible meals don't require expensive ingredients or complicated techniques.
It was where I learned that purpose, passion, and joy can sometimes be found in something as humble as street food from a market stall.
The food of Nicaragua reminds me how far I have come.
It also reminds me that rebuilding is possible.
Without realizing it, I think I chose that menu because I was rebuilding again.
A new home.
A new region.
A new chapter.
Competition day eventually arrived.
The judges tasted.
The scores were tallied.
The presentations were delivered.
And then something happened that I will remember far longer than any ranking.
Chef Terrance pulled me aside, gave me a hug, and told me he was proud of me.
That moment hit harder than I expected.
Not because I needed his approval.
But because he represented a world I had spent years wondering if I belonged in.
A world of accomplished chefs.
Respected professionals.
People whose opinions mattered.
For five years I had believed in the work.
For the first time, I felt like one of my peers was telling me he believed in it too.
The competition didn't make culinary cannabis legitimate.
It already was.
The competition didn't make Your Canna Chef real.
It already was.
What it proved was that we weren't building alone.
As Jeanette and I drove home that evening, I remember turning to her and saying:
"I'm really glad we did that. And I never want to do it again."
I meant both parts.
The competition had accomplished exactly what I hoped it would.
It introduced us to remarkable people.
It connected us to a new community.
It helped legitimize years of work.
But more importantly, it helped me realize something I had been missing.
The future of culinary cannabis isn't about a handful of chefs standing on a stage.
It's about the people watching from the audience.
Looking out at the crowd that day, I saw people from every walk of life. Food lovers. Cannabis enthusiasts. Curious newcomers. People who understood, at least on some level, that something interesting was happening in front of them.
What I wanted to tell every one of them was simple:
We aren't special.
The chefs on that stage weren't born knowing how to do this.
We learned.
We practiced.
We made mistakes.
We asked questions.
We kept improving.
For five years, Your Canna Chef has focused on making culinary cannabis approachable, understandable, and repeatable. Whether through classes, coaching, recipes, videos, private dining experiences, or conversations around a kitchen table, our goal has never been to position ourselves as the only experts in the room.
Our goal has been to help people feel confident enough to try.
If you can cook pasta, you can learn to infuse olive oil.
If you can follow a recipe, you can learn the fundamentals of dosing.
If you can learn those fundamentals, you can safely and responsibly make cannabis part of your own
kitchen.
That's what I hope people took away from the competition.
Not that we created something extraordinary.
That they can too.
And if my role in this industry is helping a home cook gain confidence, helping a patient access cannabis through real food, helping a chef avoid mistakes I made, and building a business that creates opportunities for my family long after I hang up my apron, I'd be pretty happy with that.