LODI, Calif.
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Kris Graves has not been to culinary school and is not a restaurant chef. He is a full-time Lodi firefighter who happens to cook for the crew at his fire station, but for the producers of a Food Network cooking competition, that was all the background Graves needed to be part of an intense cooking challenge scheduled to air at 10 p.m. Thursday.
Graves took part in the taped program, called the 24-Hour Restaurant Battle, with his twin brother. Together, they competed against firefighters from the New York City Fire Department. The brothers cooked a dish they call Seven-spice rubbed pork tenderloin with spicy cranberry chutney.
Graves said his grandparents cooked every day as owners of a diner in Santa Rosa and that when he was a child, his mother taught him to cook.
We all love to cook, Graves said. We have Sunday dinners and each brother would try to out do each other, try to make it nicer and bigger and fancier.
To find out whether Graves cooking won the competition, tune into Thursdays program at 10 p.m. on the Food Network.
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