Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Iron Foodie Contest? Oh yeah, I wanna be in on that!

Okay, so I just joined the Foodie BlogRoll, because, well, why not? They didn't ask me to turn over the rights to my content or do anything abusive to innocent vegetables. Just put up a little badge, and post about food. I can do that.

And they have contests. Ooooo ... I like contests. And this one in particular caught my eye.

I'm a huge fan of Iron Chef, so anything that sounds like Iron Something-or-other has to be fun, right? The deal is that 25 lucky bloggers get a basket of food, and they have to use three items from the basket and then blog about it. Oh yeah, I can do that. Heck, it's a good bet that at least one of the items will end up in a loaf of bread. Or, maybe not. But when I go to the farmer's market or grocery store or any ethnic market, that's what my next few days of cooking turns into. Me and random food in the kitchen trying to work out our differences. Fortunately I'm the one with the knife, the fire, and the opposable thumbs.

Just being chosen as one of the 25 contestants is cool, because you get free food to play with. Yummy food. Even more to blog about after the contest, since you only need to use three items for your entry. And the winner of the contest gets a certificate to shop for even more yummy food from Marx Foods, who is sponsoring the contest. How can that be bad?

So anyway, to get picked as one the lucky 25, I have to post the answers to some questions. And here they are (this is fun already, isn't it?): 

Why do you want to compete in this challenge?
Why not? Okay that's too easy. But really, this is what I do. I'm always challenging myself to make something new, try new ingredients, reinvent the casserole. In my fantasies, I would compete in Kitchen Stadium. Since that's pretty unlikely, I'd be tickled to compete online in this related format. I might even have someone bite into a green pepper or dramatically unveil the secret ingredients for me.

Limitations of time/space notwithstanding, whose kitchen would you like to spend the day in & why? Julia Child, Thomas Keller, Ferran Adria, James Beard, Marie-Antoine Careme, or The Swedish Chef?
Ah, Julia. I grew up watching Julia Child on TV and back then I enjoyed watching, but the cooking didn't seem real, somehow. It was only recently that I figured out what the problem was. The format didn't allow a whole lot of actual cooking, it was a lot of explaining and maybe some mixing and serving. Nothing really flowed from step to step. The recipes she made didn't fit well into the time allowed. and the genre was brand new and they hadn't smoothed out the kinks, so it was all a little awkward to watch when I was a child and I had the attention span of a gnat.

I'd love to spend a day with Julia Child and make a meal from start to finish and sit back and chat while the bread baked and the stew stewed. And heck, if something went wrong, we'd just deal with it and at the end of the day we'd have a great meal and a glass of wine. 

What morsel are you most likely to swipe from family & friends’ plates when they aren’t looking?
A vegetable. Pretty much any random vegetable. Maybe a french fry. And if there's an interesting sauce on the plate, that vegetable is likely to be a vehicle for just a teeny bit of that sauce.

Sum your childhood up in one meal.
Mom's home made tomato soup, salad with vinegar and oil rather than a salad dressing. If it was summer, there would probably be a plate of garden-grown sliced tomatoes and cucumbers. In winter, there might be pickles. Then, meatloaf with mashed potatoes and a big bowl of green beans. The beverage would be a glass of cold milk. No dessert. We didn't do dessert except on special occasions. Oh, and if there was meatloaf, there was ketchup on the table.

The one mainstream food you can’t stand?
Raisins. I like other dried fruits, but I'm not awfully fond of raisins. Ptooie. There was a childhood incident that involved the Easter Bunny, and ever since then I haven't been able to look a raisin in the eye.
Yum

4 comments:

Peggy said...

Great answers! Good luck and hope you advance!

TKW said...

My husband is a fellow raisin-hater. I don't like them either, except in an oatmeal cookie, and then I have to have them. Odd.

Good luck with Iron Foodie! Sounds like good fun!

Anonymous said...

Just checking out the other participants. Can't wait to find out what we'll get to play with. Anyhow, I got a chuckle out of your line about having someone bite into a pepper and announce the ingredients for you. I might have to steal that and have my sister do the unveiling. I told her I'm afraid to open the box and find kangaroo or llama or something in there that will make me cry! LOL Good luck! :)

~ Chris (Hye Thyme Cafe)

Rebecka said...

Congratulations on being chosen as one of the 25 challengers! Good luck in the competition! it will be very exciting next week when we get to open our boxes!! The suspense is killing me!!

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