PORT ANGELES — A new head chef, Chris Wagnon, will mastermind the details in serving thousands of people fresh-caught crab during the annual Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival set for Oct. 5-7.
Admission will be free to the CrabFest on City Pier but patrons must pay for crab meals — with crab, corn on the cob and cole slaw — and libations. Tickets are available now at www.crabfestival.org.
They are $26 for the Peninsula Daily News Community Crab Dinner on Oct. 5 and $29.95 Oct. 6-7.
On the final day of the festival, patrons can purchase two crab dinner tickets for $55.90. Active military and their families who have ID will pay $26 per person all three days. Half-crab dinners are available for $16.
Tickets purchased in advance not only allow the buyer to skip the ticket line at the crab feast in the Kitsap Bank Crab Central Tent in the Red Lion Hotel parking lot but also provide 10 percent off festival merchandise.
In the tent also will be special treats prepared by area restaurant chefs.
The CrabFest also offers more than 75 vendors, cooking demonstrations, a chowder cook off, grab-a-crab tank derby, live music and other attractions.
The crab dinners generally are the biggest draw to the popular festival, which drew 8,000 people — many from Canada — in 2017 with more expected this year.
And Wagnon is not new to the process of serving thousands of crab dinners. He volunteered with the festival the past seven years.
Formerly a foreman with a tree trimming company in Missouri, Wagnon moved to Sequim in 2011 and enrolled in Peninsula College’s Culinary Certificate Program.
He learned about CrabFest through one of the instructors. Her students were scheduled to volunteer at the festival, shredding cabbage for cole slaw served with the crab meal.
Wagnon volunteered, helping out wherever he could, learning to cook and clean crab – which he had never before tasted —shredding and mixing a lot of cole slaw, and learning what it’s like to keep up with thousands of hungry visitors.
While working toward his culinary certificate, Wagnon landed his first restaurant job at the Alderwood Bistro in Sequim where he worked the wood-fire oven.
Certificate completed, he enrolled in a two-year Culinary Arts program at South Seattle Community College, and took a job at Ivar’s on the Seattle waterfront.
His goal was to learn to manage timing and the pressure that comes with large volume cooking.
He started as a prep cook, worked his way up to the sauté station, and eventually managed 18 burners and three ovens while plating all of the orders, which were called verbally by the sous chef. Wagnon refers to this experience as “multi-tasking at its finest.”
His next goal was to work in fine dining. Wagnon accepted a position at the James Beard Award-Winning Rockcreek Seafood & Spirits in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, under the tutelage of Executive Chef Eric Donnelly. This position, in addition to school and homework, had Wagnon putting in 17-hour days.
Each year regardless of where he was working, Wagnon took off three days to volunteer at CrabFest.
After graduating with his culinary degree in 2017, he returned home to Sequim and took a job at Wine on the Waterfront in Port Angeles working with Chef/Owner Steve McNabb.
The 16th annual Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival in 2017 set a record for the most crab ever cooked and served – eight tons.
This year, festival organizers anticipate breaking last year’s record with at least nine tons of cooked and served crab.
What does it take to prepare, cook and serve nine tons of fresh Dungeness crab and accompaniments to thousands of visitors in a three-day festival setting?
“It all starts with a good team,” Wagnon said.
The majority of people who work the crab line are volunteers, including international students from Peninsula College, high school and college ROTC, local athletic teams and other groups, as well as local individuals.
There’s more to do than clean and cook crab. Volunteers shuck and cook locally grown corn on the cob provided by Sunny Farms, shred locally grown Nash’s cabbage and make cole slaw, restock plates, silverware and napkins, clean tables, empty trash and keep the customer line moving throughout the day.
Wagnon and crab crew staff and volunteers will start at 5 a.m., getting the stainless steel crab cookers ready for the first delivery of live, locally caught crab from High Tide Seafoods, a local supplier.
Upon delivery, the crab crew bundles the crabs, which weigh about two pounds each, into 35-gallon food containers. The crabs are cooked for 18 minutes, then allowed to cool. The crew cleans the cooked crabs and then chills them in totes filled with a slurry of ice, salt and water. As needed, the crabs are flash heated and placed on the food line for plating.
It will be Wagnon’s job to keep the entire production running like a well-oiled machine.
He will be there each day from open to close.
“What drives me the most is the people,” Wagnon said. “There isn’t a better feeling than serving good food for someone to enjoy. You can’t beat it.”
Crab meal tickets and information are at www.crabfestival.org. Questions can be emailed to operations@crabfestival.org, or asked by phone at 360-452-6300.
