Christopher Zoller, real estate exec and amateur chef, had a ready explanation for why six feet of flames shot up from the skillet of scallops he was cooking.
''I was flambéing it,'' he said. ``Really well.''
And to be fair, there were no apparent injuries at the Miami Wine and Food Festival's ''Interactive Dinner'' at the InterContinental Miami hotel ballroom Friday night, in which celebrity chef Stephen Lewandowski tried to lead 450 foodies like Zoller in cooking their own gourmet meals.
The event benefits United Way and Camillus House. About 450 paid $300 each for the event, and live and silent auctions raised another $130,000.
The evening was Iron Chef run amok. Lewandowski stood on a stage at the front of the ballroom, demonstrating each dish on a little butane burner, while 56 tables of eight tried to emulate him at their own burners.
It was like herding cats. Every table was 10 minutes ahead of Lewandowsky or 10 minutes behind -- in part because the wine-induced din in the room made it impossible to hear him.
''This is crazy,'' Lewandowski said, smiling.
Mass chefery does have its dramatic moments, such as the supercharged aroma that blasted though the ballroom when all 56 tables simultaneously dropped the minced garlic into the hot oil.
The menu was ambitious: Curried chick pea and tomato soup with cilantro, chili and lime; seared sea scallops with corn, wild asparagus and morels, with a truffle madeira vinaigrette; black trumpet lamb loin with spring vegetable orzo and robiola cheese risotto.
For each course, each table elected a ''chef'' to operate the burner. Fiduciary Trust bank bought a table and elected officer Thornton Hoelle to the prized position -- to the amusement of his wife Mary.
''He's never cooked a day in his life,'' she said. ``He burns water.''
''What do you do with the chick peas?'' somebody asked Hoelle.
``I dunno. I'm just the sacrificial lamb.''
For every two tables there was a culinary monitor -- a student from Johnson & Wales University, the culinary school in North Miami -- trying at least to keep the amateur chefs from hurting themselves.
Elba Reyes-Buchanan, 19, a sophomore at JW, was proud of Hoelle.
''He's doing good,'' she said.
Reyes-Buchanan has a glamorous life planned -- as personal chef to Oprah.
''I know about nutrition, so I can help her,'' she said.
Minutes later she changed her goal: ``Make it Rachael Ray. She's really cool.''
At another table, Maurice M. Zarmati was a picture of concentration as he labored over the steaming soup.
''I don't cook at home,'' he said. ``I go on cruises so I can eat.''
Easy for him to say: He's president and CEO of Costa Cruise Lines.
There were a lot of swells in the audience, in fact. Generous ones.
Nelly Farra of Miami, a board member of Camillus House, paid $300 to be the on-stage sous chef to Lewandowski, earning the honor of dropping little dishes of carrots and celery into the soup, then grinding the pepper. She enjoyed it so much she paid $3,750 for a night as sous chef at his Manhattan restaurant, Tribeca Grill.
''It's for a good cause,'' she said.
Table 19 had a good portion of the executive staff of Johnson & Wales.
Jordan Fickness, director of communications, jockeyed with Fred Menachem, director of development, to see who could cook the best dish.
Fickness lost. He put too much lime juice in the soup.
''It was kind of sour,'' he confessed.
He also spilled a plate of the hot soup on the leg of his boss, JW president Donald McGregor. Then he told him he should have been wearing his apron lower. The boss laughed it off, so Fickness still has a job.
He shrugged it off: ``I've done worse.''
