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Culinary Adventure promises night of food, fun

Quick! Name three rock stars.

If you said Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney and Daughtry, you wouldn’t be wrong. If you answered Bobby Flay, Mario Batali and Michael Symon, you also would be correct.

The exploding world of superstardom has busted down double doors in restaurants everywhere to create new pop culture performers whose instruments aren’t Fender guitars or baby grands but rather propane torches, pasta rollers and Henckels knives.

With that as a premise, I’ve asked New Hampshire’s best-known chefs to put on their own stage show at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 16, at the Palace Theatre in Manchester.

Mike Morin’s Culinary Adventure will, for the first time, put the state’s 10 best-known chefs onstage to show how they create the magic of the meals you enjoy in their restaurants.

Oh, and there will be live music. And comedy. And tastings. Culinary Adventure will be a true variety show, with food being the main ingredient.

As host and producer, it will be my job to stir the pot and see what happens.

My recipe looks good on paper. One thing is certain: The show will be filled with cooking demos that will provide kitchen ideas from basic techniques to ice carving. Don’t worry. We’re leaving the chain saw at home. Then again, there will be unexpected moments, so be prepared for anything.

The New Hampshire Lodging and Restaurant Association recruited the chefs, and I thought what better way to help kick off their first statewide Restaurant Week, May 18-25.

Sharing the stage with the chefs will be musicians David Stefanelli and Michael Troy, known as Beloved Few. These guys can play everything.

Stefanelli is a longtime drummer with the popular band Mama Kicks and Troy sounds more like Elton John than Sir Elton himself.

Beloved Few will provide the music and national touring comedy headliner Kelly MacFarland will serve some funny food insights.

MacFarland was a contestant on NBC’s primetime weight-loss reality show, “The Biggest Loser.” She also has been on “The View,” “The Tyra Banks Show” and “Larry King Live.” Her standup act is a scream, which is why I invited her join the party.

Food Network stars may be known nationally, but New Hampshire has a pretty deep lineup of cooking talent, including a former “Hell’s Kitchen” contestant who is now Bedford Village Inn’s executive chef.

Benjamin Knack is one of my chefs, and you can bet he’ll bring something interesting to the table after his time working under chef Gordon Ramsey.

“It was definitely a crazy experience,” Knack said. “That’s where I get all my screaming from. As a chef, you’re always looking for inspiration. I guess Gordon gives you that screaming inspiration.”

In one especially uncomfortable “Hell’s Kitchen” episode, Knack took a verbal beating not from Ramsey, but rather from the show’s sous chef, Scott Leibfried, for encroaching on his part of the kitchen turf.

“For my wife, it was pretty intense,” Knack said of the scene. “She was upset. But my friends and I, we’ve known each other for so long within this industry. We’ve been yelled at together, we’ve yelled at people together.

“It’s more of a comedy. It’s funny to see what it looks like in the kitchen from a third point of view.”

Local cooking star Michael Buckley will also be a part of Culinary Adventure. Chances are you’ve dined at one of his and wife Sarah’s four restaurants: MT’s Local Kitchen and Wine Bar and Surf Restaurant in Nashua, Buckley’s Great Steaks in Merrimack and Surf Restaurant in Portsmouth.

After nearly 20 years as a chef/owner, Buckley is impressed with the growing number of quality New Hampshire restaurants and talented chefs.

“The amount of restaurants has grown and I think the talent pool has grown,” Buckley said. “Every small city and town now has a few good restaurants with some talented chefs working in them.

“I don’t think that was the case 20 years ago. Not like there is now. The culinary scene has grown as a whole.

“Maybe that’s because of the Food Network. I don’t know. There’s more exposure to restaurants and food through the Food Network, and I think that has something do with it.”

Buckley also believes diners are staying local and driving less to Boston for quality dining.

“I like to go to Boston, too, once in a while, but if you live in southern New Hampshire, that’s an hour ride, almost, and if you live Manchester north, that’s a big commitment or drive an hour and a half or two hours if you live up in the Concord area,” Buckley said.

Knack and Buckley will be joined onstage by other favorite New Hampshire chefs, including Nicole Barreira, of Great New Hampshire Restaurants (T-Bones, Cactus Jack’s, Copper Door) and Adam Parker, of Indian Head Resort in Lincoln, an outstanding ice sculpture artist who’ll show audience members how his fleeting works of crystal beauty are created.

Carla Snow, certified specialist of wine, will demonstrate how to open a bottle using a saber. As in sword. Forget the corkscrew.

This will be very cool.