Name that artist now...
And know that this space is where I will describe the awesome fury of Iron Chef South Charleston - Una-Greco vs. Mori-Dano - Battle Rib Eye.
My father, being unfamiliar with the show, thought to warn me about my weight when I e-mailed him listed 8 dishes all containing rib eye. Poor guy thought it was an eating constest for me...
The Setup
Greco and I cook all the time at Mark's. We grill, we make big pots of soup, we make cornbreads, and chicken wings, and roasts, and 12 bean salads, and dips. Like I said, we cook.
So we decided eventually that it would be fun to go Greco a Dano, head-to-head. We talked about it for a month, read up on the show, sorted out our judges, talked through the ground rules, and generally got everyone excited for the cookin'.
The Rules
320 points possible per contestant: 20 per dish per judge. 10 for taste, 5 for presentation (food only, we were all using paper plates to serve), and 5 for originality.
4 judges: Chez, Trish, Rodney, and T-Hib (who was subbed for Big Game Wayne, who apparently is more all about the benjamins, but who can blame him). We figured these guys had all had my food and Greco's, liked both, and wouldn't put up with our pathetic attempts to bribe them.
2 hours: Bumped up by an extra fifteen minutes about an hour into the competition because four large men in one small kitchen with four burners...it ain't happenin'.
2 sous chefs: And Greco and I will both tell you we could not have pulled this off without them. Herb Gardner and Randy Lowery were ON IT. Slicing, dicing, tasting, grilling, suggesting, running. A grand time.
1 ingredient: Secret, that is. Greco and I had a list of five we knew it would come from so we could at least shop for the pantry with some ideas.
Flipped a coin to see who went first to the judges. G won the toss and elected to go first. Randy and I got to reheat/keep warm our dishes, but we still had to have one of each dish we were presenting plated at the 2:15 mark.
The Ingredient
It was RIB EYE.
The Announcer
Can't do this properly without thanking Dave "Alton Brown" Thomas for having abirthday we needed to celebrate and for doing running commentary for the crowd and keeping time for the cooks.
The Hosts
The biggest thanks go out to Mark and Tracy for hosting a bunch of drunken-monkey fools with knives and too much coconut milk for their own good. Those two put up with a lot, and if you all had seen the kitchen after four idiots got done with it (with no intention of cleaning up after themselves), you'd know just how much.
Coming up in a separate post...
The Cooking
The Recipes
The Judging
The Winner
3 comments:
Was any of this photographed or videotaped? 'Cause it could be entertaining viewing.
tragically, my phone was being used as a timer for Randy and I, so no photos there. Chez's camera was on the fritz. I think Mark may have taken a couple photos of the plated dishes because i kept screaming, "damn that's pretty, somebody PLEASE take a picture of it!"
as for video, we thought we had someone lined up, but it fell through last minute. this wasn't the 'everyone has a camcorder' crowd.
It rocked the house right!!!!
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