Honolulu chef and restaurateur Chai Chaowasaree is the sole Hawaii combatant in the national Alouette Cheese Master Holiday Chef Challenge competition, which kicks off today and could win you prizes along the way.

The contest seeks your votes for your favorite chef’s holiday meal menu including an appetizer, entree and dessert. Chai and 14 other chefs were tasked with creating a dish that a home cook can make for a memorable holiday meal.

"It’s not about creating anything too complex, but taking local flavors and incorporating them with cheese to create something new … with Alouette," said Mary-Kate Van Fossen, marketing brand manager.

"Preparing holiday meals can be a daunting task," she said, however, "with the help of these talented chefs, we have created simple and delicious recipes for the holiday table."

In creating his recipes, Chaowasaree sampled the cheeses and let his imagination take over.

Chai got inspiration from some dishes he makes at Chai’s Island Bistro, he said, and used certain types of the Alouette cheeses thinking that home cooks "can use this, or plain, and add whatever you want" to each particular dish.

Van Fossen pointed to the increasing trend of consumers getting more interested in cooking at home, given the popularity of Food Network and the Cooking Channel, and cooking-related reality shows on broadcast and cable networks.

Chefs could draw from a wide selection of Alouette, Chavrie and Ile de France cheeses in creating their recipes.

For your time perusing the recipes online and voting for your favorite chef, say, perhaps your hometown entry, you have a chance to win daily or weekly prizes.

Daily prizes include $25 gift cards "every single day," whereas the weekly prizes, for 11 weeks, have Van Fossen drooling. They include Kitchen Aid stand mixers, blenders and other kitchen goodies. "I want one so bad," she confided. Sadly, she’s not eligible.

The grand-prize winning voter will receive a trip to the winning chef’s restaurant for dinner for two, "a city tour, $500 in spending money for five days and four nights, plus a private cooking demo with the chef," she said.

The winning chef will receive $20,000.

Not to bachi anything, but when pressed, Chaowasaree said if he were to win, he would donate the cash to charity.

What he does hope to get out of the competition is to give people an example of a holiday meal they might find exotic, and to promote Hawaii as a food destination. "Our chefs are as creative and as good as any chefs in the world," Chaowasaree said.

The folks at Alouette are well aware that hometown chefs will likely win favored status in their areas, but those communities with no horse in the race will vote "purely on the merits of the dishes the chefs have created," Van Fossen said.

You can vote daily through Dec. 12.

Chefs were chosen based not only on their accolades, but also their community involvement. In Chaowasaree’s case, as owner of Singha Thai Cuisine, Chai’s Island Bistro and the soon-to-open Chai’s at Pacifica, and as executive chef for Hawaiian Airlines, "his willingness and desire to bring the world the best of Hawaii’s … local flavors" made him seem like the right fit, Van Fossen said.

The winning chef will be announced the week of Dec. 24.

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On the Net:

» chefchai.com

» www.masterholidaychef.com

» www.alouettecheese.com

» www.chavrie.com

» iledefrancecheese.com

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Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.