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The winners of the Barbecue in the Boros Grill Master Competition in June 2012. Crystal Davis is pictured on the far right.   

     An award winning master chef is now making her home in Sevierville. Crystal Davis, AKA Chef Crys, formerly of New York, recently moved to the Volunteer State. Davis, 28, won the Barbeque in the Boros contest in New York City in June of this year. The contest pitted the best Barbeque chefs and the best grill masters in the Big Apple. Davis won first place in the Manhattan’s Best Grill Master 2012 for her barbecued drunken jerk chicken with grilled corn and asparagus salad.

  Davis got a chance to meet another master chef, Sunny Anderson, star of “Cooking for Real” on the Food Network.  Her recipes and photos appeared in the New York Daily News. The contest was the second of two monumental achievements for the rising star. Davis was featured on the Arizona Iced Tea web Site as a featured rising star.

 “I had a roommate that asked me to create a dessert recipe using Arizona Iced Tea,” said Davis. “The next thing I knew we had all this iced tea arriving at our home. I created an Arizona Organic Green Tea Pound cake. Since then I have created three other recipes for the company including a blueberry white tea sorbet.”

  Davis’s passion for food was awakened by her grandmother at the age of 8.

 “My Nana was the most extraordinary woman,” Davis said. “She loved to cook for her family and friends. I have many happy memories of family and friends sitting around her home on Sundays sharing stories, laughs and great food.”

  Davis built her own catering business in New York called the “SupperBox by Chef Crys.” She prepared gourmet meals at a reasonable price and even delivered the meals through the crowded streets of New York. Family commitments led to her relocate to Sevier County. She is currently working on a cook book she hopes to have published within the next year.

  Like a true artisan of the culinary arts, Davis is passionate about the food she prepares. She speaks with eloquence describing in detail the preparation of her dishes sometimes gesturing like a conductor of a symphony.     

  “I was influenced by an old copy of Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook from the 1950s,” Davis said. “In New York I was cooking all the time and setting off fire alarms at 3 a.m. I had a roommate and we often invited our friends to come over on holidays and occasionally Sundays. Like my childhood, we shared laughs, great stories and I had the satisfaction of cooking for them just like my Nana used to do. Those are precious memories.”

  Currently Davis is seeking employment as a chef with a local restaurant where she would like to tantalize the taste buds of her patrons with the same culinary skills that won her the Best Grill master competition.      

  A tuna tartar with an avacado cream puree is one of the delectible treats that has won Davis accolades from her peers.