Bay radio host takes on celebrity chef

The Spatula challenge preparations this Sunday morning at Noel Leeming Tauranga.

Radio host Will Johnston, from The Hits Bay of Plenty, is getting ready to take on local celebrity chef Peter Blakeway at midday today in "Noel Leeming's The Spatula".

The two contestants will go head to head in a hotly contested cook off with Johnston putting up his amateur cooking skills against the uber-talented local celebrity chef.

The cook-off will take place at the Noel Leeming Built-In Cooking Centre at 266 Cameron Rd.

Bay locals who come watch will get to sample the food, vote for their favourite chef and go in the draw to win hundreds of dollars worth of Noel Leeming prizes.

Each contestant will have to create a winning dish from a mystery box of ingredients.

Who will win 'Noel Leeming's The Spatula'?

The contenders:

Name: Will Johnston
Age: 31
Cooking skills: Barbecues and stir-fries. "I like to do the barbecue stuff, and I have got better over the years. My sausages used to come out like a rock but now I have got that down to an art. Although people might be drunk when they eat them."
Signature dish: Stir-fry. Chocolate self-saucing pudding
Favourite cooking implement: Wooden spoon
Secret weapon: "Everyone likes an underdog. I am hoping that my listeners and readers will want to come and see me make a goose of myself but vote for me anyway. And I might enlist a local sous-chef."
What do you think of your opponent? "His food is delicious. I have known him for years and watched him cook. Unfortunately I don't remember how to do it."

Name: Peter Blakeway
Age: 40s
Cooking skills: 25 years' experience. A champion of local Bay produce, he has his own television show Taste From Our Land, a column in the Bay of Plenty Times and is author of Fresh! The Best of New Zealand from Market to Table. He runs live cooking demonstrations and has run cooking schools at various venues in the Bay including Mills Reef Winery and The Good Food Trading Company. He is a consultant chef and has worked with the Bay of Plenty Steamers and the Chiefs.
Signature dish: Taking an old recipe such as apple pie, deconstruct it and make it new using modern techniques such as liquid nitrogen to serve it with ice cream and dry ice.
Favourite cooking implement: "My knives. I like to wield them like a drummer wields his sticks."
Secret weapon: "I like to use wine when I cook and sometimes in the cooking."
What do you think of your opponent? "He makes all the noise, but I have seen no evidence. He could be a secret Gordon Ramsay - he certainly talks like him sometimes."

Will Johnston, left, and Peter Blakeway.