Guests arrived trickling and the first few hours were spent chatting and catching up and drinking cold beverages and snacking on appetizers. Finally, it was H-Hour. The Chairwomen, my mother and her two appointed fellow Chairs Marie Lopes and Leah Decter, entered the kitchen with much fanfare, be-costumed and bearing mysterious boxes. The crowd was divided into teams for the cook-off. The boxes were numbered 1-4, and everyone chose a number from a hat corresponding to one of the boxes, and grouped together with their teammates much like a school sports day. And it was a game! Two teams cooked at a time, and there were four people on each team (lots of attendees were just observers) so the kitchen got mighty packed. Once the boxes were opened, each team had ten minutes to plan a three-course menu with the ingredients in their box and then pans and elbows started flying.
Carson was on team 1 who cooked first.
Their box contained:
2 whole chickens
a packet of plastic dinosaurs
oyster mushrooms
raw cocoa beans
Chinese green beans
canned cabbage
kale flowers
a jar of gherkins
a tin of Chinese-style coconut fruit pudding
They made:
Roasted garlic and rosemary oyster mushroom stuffed chicken
Steamed veggies sauteed in sesame oil with gherkins
Grated cocoa beans served over fruit pudding
I was on Team 2 which cooked second. My teammates were my mom's cousin Christine Fitzpatrick, my fairy uncle Jeff Hatcher and a friend of my mom's named Jackie. I know Christine and Jeff very well, as they are family, and I knew they could be counted on not to freak out with stress or go lame and run away in the heat of the kitchen brutality, and Jackie also turned out to be very imaginative and a cool head.
Our box contained:
one can Red Bull energy drink
one can tomato paste
a packet of those pink plastic baby dolls
smoked mild black peppers
one tin of candied rose petals
one bag gummy bear candy
rambutan fruit
moshi rice paste
Chinese cabbage
green onions
shiitake mushrooms
lamb legs
We prepared:
grilled mushrooms stuffed with curried rice paste on a bed of steamed greens
Braised spicy marinated lamb legs
gummy bear syrup served over chilled rambutan with mint and garnished with candied rose petals
Our food was un-freakin'-believably good. It didn't even taste like fake-out weird ingredient menu, it tasted killer. We won the super-awesome-taste award! The chairwomen were very serious in their deliberations and gave everybody a well-deserved hilarious prize. Carson's team was awarded for "Best Use of Stuffing Things Inside Meat"and they received a giant plastic toy machete. Team 4 was awarded "Best Throwdown" and received a pair of Michael Jackson gloves. Our team received "Most Ass-kickin'est Taste" award and a huge toy necklace made of red plastic chilies.
The party was a blast, much fun was had by all (despite elbows and obscenities and fistfights in the kitchen), and there was the biggest post-party mess I have ever seen in that kitchen by the time midnight rolled around. Everybody was exhausted!
(All pictures courtesy of Mrs. Donella Baird)
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