A local food truck owner has placed second in the top five of fan favourites in a recent video contest that was held by the Food Network.Jo Klitzke is the owner of Westcott Country Kitchen, a mobile food unit that specializes in home-cooked offerings that include cabbage rolls, roast beef on a bun, lasagna, sausage rolls, fudge, cinnamon buns and cookies.Her entry got 3,305 votes, just 500 less than the winning entry, Hamilton's Gorilla Cheese.ìI love to cook and I love to feed people,î she said. ìI have a passion for gardening and cooking.îKlitzke first heard about the Eat Street Video Contest through friends, who told her she should consider entering.ìI started to watch the show and I thought, that's cool,î she said. ìYou could join as a vendor on a website and post your menu on there.îIt was an easy task for Klitzke, whose former career was in software.ìThen in late October, Eat Street sent all the vendors an invitation to join the contest,î she said. ìThey said there were 58 vendors in Canada and the United States who ultimately entered.îVendors had to submit a 90-second video for the contest, explaining why they were different and why people should vote for them.ìWe had to describe what we do in the food truck industry that nobody else does,î she added.ìFor me, it's the fact that everything is homemade. We don't use any deep fryers or grills and we don't use frozen french fries or burgers.ìA lot of the ingredients I use in my meals come from my own garden and I use local sources as much as possible.îShe enlisted the help of her son's best friend, Phil Harrison from Carstairs, who is a professional videographer.ìHe said he would love to do the video for me, for free,î she said. ìHe had already done some work for the Food Network and he told me that they would want a story, a personality and good food. He said that I already had it all.îKlitzke recruited dozens of her regular customers, inviting them to her place in Westcott for the filming of the video, offering them free food in exchange for their testimony and appearance. A technical glitch with the sound forced them to re-shoot another day.ìWe used a similar theme as in the movie, Field of Dreams,î said Klitzke. ìIf you cook it, they will come.îShe added that her theme song in the video was Queen's hit, Don't Stop Me Now ñ I'm Having Such a Good Time.Finally, the 90-second film was edited and submitted to Eat Street.ìShortly afterward, we got an email from Corey Dilley, the marketing manager at Eat Street,î said Klitzke. ìHe said he loved the storyline and the choice of music.îDilley also said that it was ìquite obvious that Klitzke's food truck was the closest thing to homecooking out of all the vendors.îìAll her patrons appreciated her homecooking,î Dilley said. ìPlus, there was a cool community feel to her business.îEat Street has been on the air for about a year. This is the first food truck contest they've run.ìOur goal was to get about 60 entries for the contest,î Dilley said.î ìWe were surprised at the number of vendors who took the time to make a video.îThe voting ran from Jan. 11 ñ 31. ìWe told people to report their votes and for every vote recorded, we would enter their name in a draw for a $50 gift certificate for our great food,î Klitzke said. ìLots of people said that if their name was drawn, to give the $50 to the food bank instead. I announced that for every vote cast for Westcott Country Kitchen, we would donate 50 cents to the food bank.îEat Street producers were impressed with Klitzke's method of garnering votes. ìHer back-end contest with contributing money to the food bank was very cool,î said Dilley.In total, Klitzke ended up contributing nearly $573 to the food bank.ìThe whole food channel is about food and some people can't put Kraft Dinner on the table,î she said. ìIt just made sense to make the connection to the food bank.îThe top five winners receive a bio on Eat Street's webpage. As well, Klitzke's video will be played on the show.ìI have won new customers and I'm ecstatic by the support,î Klitzke said. ìBeing just 500 votes behind first place was just amazing. It was neck and neck at the end.î
