Island restaurateur to be featured on Food Channel

Crawford and her Red Apple Entertainment T.V. crew visited Lavena’s Catch Café last week to tape a Nova Scotia segment of a yet-to-be-named 2010 T.V. series.

Among foodies, the Canadian-born Crawford is considered a star. The former executive chef of Four Seasons in New York City, she has appeared on Iron Chef America, and was a regular on Restaurant Makeover.

The series she is currently working on has the working title, ‘Fearless Chef,’ according to field producer Meagan Mcateer. ‘Fearless’ because Crawford not only prepares food in the upcoming series—but goes to the source of the food. She has already hung out on a pig farm in Dixie, Georgia, and trapped crawfish in Rayne Louisianna.

The Islands segment had her rising at dawn so she could work side by side with the crew of the lobster boat, ‘Georgie Porgie.’ “For chefs, it’s all about preparing the best dishes you can possibly prepare,” says Crawford. “I wanted to do a show on lobster—and that meant coming to Nova Scotia. Everyone knows the best lobster in the world comes from the Bay of Fundy.”

Among chefs, ‘best’ is also synonymous with ‘fresh’ and Crawford’s researchers unearthed the fact that a little restaurant at the tip of Nova Scotia’s Long Island made a habit of serving seafood that was prepared just hours after it was caught. They also learned that Crocker’s husband and father were both lobster fishermen.

In fact, Crocker herself is a former fisher, with no formal training as a chef. She opened her café 10 years ago and planned that it would be a small enterprise, serving light lunches. She soon learned—from both locals and island tourists—that there was a demand for a restaurant serving full course meals.

With her Freeport location, and the availability of fish and lobster right off the boat, it made sense to specialize in seafood. She conscripted her aunt, Heather Prime, to create the desserts, and Lavena’s Catch Café was born.

With its reputation for excellent food at reasonable prices, the restaurant has earned a bevy of regulars from near and far. “We have people from South Carolina and from England—when they come to the area they always come here for a meal,” says Crocker. “We serve more than 100 people a day.”

Crocker couldn’t have her business open while the taping was going on but she needed to have the restaurant full, so a number of her regulars joined the party and will appear in the segment.

Digby County musicians Marc Bastarache and Kim Newsome—a boyfriend-girlfriend team who sometimes perform at the café—provided authentic Nova Scotia music.

The T.V. crew stayed at Ray and Virginia Tudor’s Brier Island Lodge while they were taping, and vistas from both Brier Island and Long Island are likely to make their way into the edited version of the show.

Crocker says the whole experience has been a tad nerve-wracking, but there’s little doubt the wide exposure will be good for her business—and good for Digby County.