Scotch Dates

I meant to post about The National Food Experiment Results months ago, but I had some technical difficulties. Better late than never!

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I have a thing for the number 12. Mostly because my birthday falls on the 12th. I feel the number is my lucky charm. So much so, I prefer to set my morning alarm on the twelfth minute of the hour when my schedule allows. It guarantees I have a good day. Weird…yeah. OCD, just a bit? Most certainly. So you can imagine how excited I was when the clock struck midnight on the 2012 New Year’s! A great year guaranteed! I was not disappointed. I crushed The Houston Beer Experiment. The magician carried me over our first threshold. We all of a sudden had this crazy family of cats (Don’t judge us.) Then we competed for culinary glory in Brooklyn. Now 2012 will always be known as The Year of the Magic Hops!!! Yeah, 2012 was even better than I could have hoped.

So how’d we do in the National Championship you ask? Well, we rocked Brooklyn’s socks right off with a solid 2nd place win in the Audience Category. Welcome home Le Creuset grill pan trophy! (You’re even better than those Jet Blue tickets.) No grand Championship or judges’ honors. But who cares? We were treated to a freaking amazing weekend in the most exciting city in the world. Thanks Brooklyn Brewery & The Food Experiments! I’m overjoyed, overwhelmed, and God darn-it people liked our “Scotch Date”.

“Scotch Date”

A Medjool date filled with chive cream cheese, wrapped in chile garlic sausage, breaded with panko, deep fried, and topped with a cilantro jalapeno aioli

Our dish was out there. A huge risk that I doubted every step of the way. Frying in a catering type situation is a cardinal sin. You don’t do it unless you fry on-site. But in this game, all cooking is done the day before in tight kitchen quarters, and you have little time to prep anything before go-time. You get to utilize a chafing dish and Sterno at the competition, nothing with an electrical plug. Creativity is encouraged. We were advised that a rented oven would be on-site in the brewery to reheat our dish right before the competition started. But surprise, the oven failed. So we gathered extra Sternos and pulled out that torch we bought just in case!

Thanks to the magician and my friends for encouraging me to stick with the dish despite these challenges! After the first few attendees sampled the date, my doubt faded and the adrenaline kicked in… time to bust out bites to 300 eager samplers. Seeing the smiles, surprising reactions, and satisfaction as the audience tasted the date gave me a high. It made slaving over the tedious prep-work all worth it.

As the crowd grew full and tipsy for the flowing Brooklyn Brewery Beer, we ran out of food. People had circled back to our table for seconds, thirds, and fourths. I was feeling good. My friends gauged the crowd buzz, and we had a shot at winning this! EEEeek…I couldn’t believe it. The votes were counted, the team leaders were summoned, and winners announced. No we didn’t win, but it felt like we did. I teared up and gave a love felt thank you to my magician. I couldn’t have done it without him, and he didn’t say a word about my bossiness the whole time. Plus, I was featured on the “Blue Ribbon Hunter” online t.v. show. Pretty cool.

The Blue Ribbon Hunter

People keep asking me “So “What’s next?” Honestly, I don’t know. I will keep on cooking, keep stirring up mad hatter recipes in my kitchen, keep on blogging, keep on eating like there’s no tomorrow, and most importantly, keep on plotting my culinary empire. More food competitions may come. I can’t deny my competitive nature, but who knows. Life is so curious when you don’t plan it. 2013 could hold all sorts of surprises. Maybe there’s a Food Experiment Cookbook in the works. If not, there should be. I’ll contribute a recipe.

Biggest Day of the Year!

Where has the year gone? Summer, warm sunsets, and margaritas drifted away before I knew it. In September, we celebrated a dear friend’s nuptials in Chicago and celebrated the Magician’s thirty-first birthday. Last month, marked my first anniversary living in Houston as an adult. Last week marked my third anniversary with the Magician. But the most exciting, biggest day of the entire year falls next month. No, not Christmas, not NYE. The Food Experiment National Championship is finally here!!!!!!!!! I swear my March victory was yesterday. Seriously, where the hell did the time go?

Less than one month people! 25 DAYS!!! Panic and nerves are setting in, along with the realization that I have to cook the best bite of my life for 300 people in an unfamiliar city that celebrates some of the best food ANYWHERE. Period. This is big. Really big. A defining moment on my road to culinary domination. Time for lists…to-dos, packing materials, time lines, recipes. Ready go.

We decided on the bite after much experimentation, multiple tastings, and focus groups. Is it the best? I sure as hell hope so. Creative…definitely. I don’t think it’s been done before, and my endless Google searches seem to support that.   Delicious…it involves homemade sausage, panko, cheese. How could that be bad? Other than that, you won’t get many other details. I think the element of surprise will work in our favor. BUT KNOW THIS…THE MAGIC HOPS ARE BRINGING IT!

Domestic Bliss and Brussels

Well, it finally happened! The magician relocated to Houston after 8 long months of the long distance thing. We rented a lovely condo on the edge of River Oaks, and moved in with our kitty boys about three weeks ago. I am in domestic bliss settling in and decorating with my love. And from what I can tell, he’s enjoying it too. He hasn’t tried to make me disappear once. I’m pretty sure he digs the nightly meals, and fridge full of leftovers.

In the midst of our nesting phase, and what felt like years without a steady internet connection, I missed sharing a post I wrote for The Alcalde back in June. They asked me to test out a recipe from Garrett Weber-Gale, an olympic swimmer who cooks up nutritiously refined dishes. I jumped at the opportunity to prepare his Caramelized Brussels Sprouts and Pearl Onions. Read my thoughts on the Athletic Foodie’s Brussels on The Alcalde blog.

The New Ladies’ Night

When I was in my early twenties, an ideal girl’s night out was spent on  Austin’s  6th street dwindling the early morning hours drinking Kamikazes and  dancing the night away. Fast forward 6 years, and oh, how things change.

 

Now my ultimate Friday night means hanging out in the burbs with two of my best lady friends hand-making pasta and sipping sophisticated cocktails. Could it get any better? You could add lobster to the mix…and we did. It seems like adulthood has its advantages.

Lobster Ravioli  with asparagus in a Brown Butter Sauce & Fettuccine with Vegetable Ribbons in Vodka Sauce

The New Challenge…for now

To my disappointment, I had to abandon my year-long Farmhouse Delivery challenge when I left Austin. No one could recommend a similar all-local delivery service here. (On the upside, I think I missed the bulk of beet season!) Luckily for me, Farmhouse recently announced they were setting up shop in H-town. So when I ditch the suburbs for a hip, inner-loop locale, I’ll re-join and pick up where I left off with my challenge.

In the meantime, you’ll have to follow me on the long road to the The Food Experiment National Championship. There is no theme for this final showdown. The only rule is to cook “The Perfect Bite.” And, oh the choices…and the intimidation! The only thing I know is that I want to create Texas flavors with local, seasonal New York ingredients. Something warm, something hearty, something delicious. That really narrows it down, right?

For a little Texas inspirado, I bought Robb Walsh’s new book over the weekend, Texas Eats: The New Lone Star Heritage Cookbook. It’s my new kitchen bible. He masterfully crafts together his rough history of Lone Star cuisine through stories of Texas legends and beautiful recipes.

I look forward to reading it cover to cover. And hopefully, Mr. Walsh will spark my experimentation imagination.

Big Exciting News

Time to come out of my winter hibernation, and finally share where the hell I’ve been the past few months. Plus, I have BIG exciting news to announce! First and foremost, I moved to Houston five months ago for a new job. It was a sudden, unexpected transition accompanied by some jumps for joy and lots of tears, but the job was too good to pass up. The magician still lives in Austin, but he’s moving here this summer! YAY!

And now the BIG exciting news…with a little back story first. Last year, the magician and I competed in the first ever Austin Pork Experiment hosted by The Food Experiments, America’s most exciting amateur cook-off series. We won third place in the audience round with The Oinker, a.k.a. a delicious pork meat-cake topped with sweet potato mashers and chives.

So when Theo of the Food Experiments announced that the Houston Beer Experiment was the first stop on the bigger, better 2012 National tour, the magician and I rushed to enter as “The Magic Hops” for another chance at culinary glory. For the entire month of February, I cooked (and drank) lots of local, craft beer to perfect our dish, Pork and Grits Under the Influence. This year we were not taking any pilsners.

Our final bite for last weekend’s cook-off was a smokey pulled pork served over Bombshell Blonde infused grits garnished with a homemade bread & butter jalapeño, bacon, and scallions. The dish came together exactly as I’d hopped…I mean hoped. I smoked the pork over Lonestar-soaked applewood for 6 hours, and then continued to braise it in Southern Star Bombshell Blonde for another 5 hours until it was fork tender. The grits cooked in Bombshell Blonde along with a few other confidential ingredients. And, the jalapenos, my secret weapons, had brined for a week and were the perfect sweet, spicy kick to top off my Southern classic.

Photo courtesy of the Houston Press.

My competition was intense! My fellow amateur chefs brought it, and we went up against sixteen incredible dishes. (Fried Pork Belly, Guava Wheat Lamb Stew, and Barely Buzzed Beer Cheese Soup just to name a few.) After the judging ended and 250 samples were passed out to the huge crowd, the team captains gathered on stage awaiting the results.

I was nervous and giddy as Theo announced the awards. He finally came to the Grand Prize, and our team hadn’t been called. One more spot left. I fidgeted with anticipation. Then he shouted “The Magic Hops!” The rest is a blur. I freaked out. Someone told me, I literally hopped to the mic like a bunny. I was wearing bunny ears, but the hopping was a pure coincidence.

Our prizes included: sweet cookware from Le Creuset & Analon, a Wusthof knife, a kick-ass t-shirt, Chameleon Cold Brew, and most importantly a trip to Brooklyn sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery to compete in the National Championship against all the tour winners. I am so honored that so many in the crowd loved my food and so proud to represent Houston, my hometown. Thank you to everyone who supported us, The Food Experiments, and Brooklyn Brewery for an amazing day. I look forward to experimenting to create the perfect bite for the final showdown in Brooklyn on December 16th. It’s only 283 282 days away. But who’s counting.

I’ll be back!

Hi dear readers! I know I’ve been m.i.a. the past few weeks, and I’ve got a good explanation for you…promise. I’ll be back next in a few weeks to share the exciting changes that have happened in my life the past 2 months. Look forward to hearing about edible adventures in a new city, and my continual quest to waste less food.

In the meantime, warm up with a hearty bowl of Tortilla Soup. I shared my recipe with The Alcalde this week!