The Cooking Critic

Apparently, the world is even less interested in salads than I am. Nobody seems to care about the Broiled Shrimp and Spinach Salad I raved about recently. Or at least, few people cared enough to actually access the recipe. The much-less healthy Sausage Balls, however, are wildly popular. So since y’all like cheese and meat, I figure sugar and butter can’t be far behind. Hence, an entire entry devoted to icing.

With multiple Taurus birthdays, which timed themselves well with my practice for a cupcake competition, I’ve been trying out many different icings. Mostly buttercream in nature with an occasional ganache thrown in. Kurt says I’m “a bit dorky” for entering a cupcake competition, but I think most people would have no problems with the fact that I’m bringing more iced cupcakes into the world. You have to make the world a better place somehow. Angelina Jolie helps the children of Namibia; I bake cupcakes then sloppily ice them.

I started with this basic buttercream recipe that we regularly use in my family, and for my first effort turned it into a Peanut Butter Icing by substituting the peanut butter for the butter. I also added lots of salt because I can’t stand super-sweet peanut butter. I made a Chocolate Glaze to complement it (2 cups melted semi-sweet chocolate chips with 1 cup cream whisked in until smooth), and then swirled the glaze and the icing on top the cupcake to make a cupcake version of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Mmm, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cupcakes.

I decided to turn another batch of buttercream icing into Chai Icing by adding cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger, even some crushed black tea leaves—though sadly, didn’t bother with measurements. It was an unusually spicy and mysterious icing. I’m trying to think of its female celebrity equivalent. Grace Kelly? Sophia Loren? Hmm, not sure. But it would go well with a pear or apple cake.

Next up was a White Chocolate Ganache. This was my first foray into ganache-making, which typically consists of heated cream, some form of chocolate and a liqueur mixed in. I’ll be visiting ganache again. As much as I love buttercream, ganache was a nice way to mix things up, especially when it topped a thin layer of raspberry preserves or lemon curd.

Maple Syrup Icing is next on the icing queue (possibly with some stewed apples mixed in or used for garnish), and then I think I will be cupcaked out. I may even be forced to eat another salad….

If you take a look at my last few posts, you’ll see I’ve been subsisting on cheese, brunch foods and dessert. I suspect my recent eating habits don’t make for a well-balanced diet. As much as I wish brunch foods and desserts had their own little slot on the food pyramid, it’s probably best they don’t. I blame my food intake for my feelings of sluggishness and general ickiness and determined it was high time I ate a salad.

Evidently the universe thought I should eat a salad too because the cosmos aligned so that I rediscovered a Broiled Shrimp and Spinach Salad recipe and happened to have all the ingredients already in my kitchen, surprisingly since shrimp, green beans and fresh dill are not normally staples for me. Therefore, I declare Broiled Shrimp and Spinach Salad a small miracle.

I went about chopping green onions and squeezing lemon with high hopes for this salad. I suspected it would be exactly what I needed to combat the ill effects of my recent sugar overdose and taste fabulous. But immediately after thinking this, I determined I just jinxed my salad. There was no way it could live up to my unreasonable expectations since I do, in fact, have a habit of anticipating far more amazing things than is really fair for the object of my expectations. (Movies and boys are routine disappointments because of this.) But, I needn’t have worried–my expectations were met. The shrimp makes this salad substantial, the green beans add just the right crunch (had I not slightly overcooked them), the lemony dressing is zippy but balanced by the fresh dill. In short, happiness is a Broiled Shrimp and Spinach Salad.

Adjustments: I used cooked, frozen shrimp instead of cooking raw shrimp. So basically, I didn’t broil the shrimp for Broiled Shrimp and Spinach Salad. But this cuts the work you have to do in half (especially nice when your throwing this together for lunch, as I did.) It also means your eating a cold salad instead of a warm one, but that’s fine by me. Also, I added more lemon juice to the dressing.

Assessment: I am completely charmed by this salad and plan on having it again for lunch tomorrow. I wish I hadn’t halved the dressing recipe because I will want this salad again later in the week and will have to make the dressing again. Not that it was any trouble at all. The whole dish was easy, elegant and wonderful. If only life were like Broiled Shrimp and Spinach Salad.

I showed up to the last poker match without a single baked good on me. No brownies, no pies, no cookies. I only had a bottle of red wine. And I was late.

I was under the impression that the boys only wanted my money, which I inevitably lose as of late, but, as it turns out, they want my brownies too–I was called a tease for bringing brownies to a previous poker game but not this one. So, not wanting to disappoint, I promised brownies this time around . . . then made a Strawberry and Lemon Curd Cream Pie instead.

I had intended on going through with my brownie promise, I even bought the ingredients, but I had all these sweet leftovers sitting in my fridge after holding a massive brunch (strawberries, a cream cheese fruit dip), and since I hate wastefulness, I felt obliged to use these ingredients. Also, Strawberry and Lemon Curd Cream Pie is easier to make than made-from-scratch brownies. It’s true whether you believe me or not.

Here are some of the fruity friends from World Market that helped me make this pie:

After using Sticky Fingers Bakeries’ jarred lemon curd, I see no reason to make my own lemon curd ever again. It’s a relief, really, to know that part of my life is taken care of. I will never have to constantly stir thickening lemon curd in my makeshift double boiler again. Although, when I put it that way, it makes me kind of sad.

Recipe: I followed the Honey Maid Graham Crackers Crumb’s pie recipe on the back of the box. You don’t have to bake it, but I did because I thought that would lessen the chances of it turning into a crumbly mess. Then I put a very thin layer of the jarred lemon curd, then a layer of this Fruit Dip with a little vanilla extract mixed in, then sliced strawberries, then I heated the Raspberry Tart preserves and used that as a glaze. I don’t know if I would bother with the glaze next time. I thought a red jam might heighten the red of the strawberries, but I found myself preoccupied with trying not to stain the cream layer underneath when brushing it on the berries. Placing the strawberries on top the cream can get messy, so you can always do the cream as a top layer or serve it on the side. One thing I like about this dish is that it can be reconfigured in so many different ways: rearrange the layers any way you like or omit one all together. Lemon curd and strawberries taste great by themselves without the cream filling, and the cream filling and strawberries don’t need the lemon curd either.

It’s not my most professional presentation, but it looks summery, and it tastes summery, and it was gone by the end of the evening.

I’ve determined it’s time to stop hiding behind my cookbooks and create my own recipes. Not solely, of course. Occasionally. And despite the fact I rarely create a new dish entirely from scratch, I was anticipating a high success rate with this new endeavor. I would create one spectacular dish after the other, win big cash prizes and be featured on TV.

While Bizarro Me collects huge checks for some vague job with food, and so, shops for beautifully packaged goods at gourmet markets, the actual me has to deal with the flourescent lights and non-sensical organization of Ralph’s and the reality of would-be culinary masterpieces gone awry. I created this brand-new version of macaroni and cheese all by myself. It involved roasted peppers and roasted garlic. It is, in fact, mediocre.

I actually took the time to make a roux out of milk and flour for this then added sharp cheddar, Monterey jack and many seasonings. But this cheesy mixture looked a lot like Velveeta to me. It even tasted a bit like Velveeta. And I found myself thinking as I ate my meal, no wonder people just make the stuff from the box.

Despite this setback, I have some new ingredients in mind and high hopes for my next foray into mac-and-cheese making. And my overactive imagination is already primed for more guest appearances on talk shows.

If you want a mac and cheese recipe, go here—it’s what I do to box macaroni and cheese to give it more heft and flavor. It takes less time and tastes better than what I tried last night. And since I didn’t bother taking a picture of my culinary failure, I’ll leave you with this image of some sort of sausage I ate in Germany.

My idea for an Easter brunch started out harmless enough. I saw the Weekend Cookbook Challenge was having a bloggers’ brunch round-up, and I thought something along the lines of “Brunch! What a lovely idea. Perhaps I will have a few friends over, and I will serve them brunch.” Between this original small-scale notion and sending out an Evite less than a week before Easter, the idea had ballooned into inviting nearly everyone I know in the Los Angeles area. And while I generally think I’m capable of fitting more tasks into a day than is humanly possible, I had no delusions about being the sole supplier of a meal for thirty people, which was a pleasantly surprising showing for a last-minute shindig. So I described the brunch as “potluck-ish” and at the risk of sounding bossy, told people exactly what we needed for a diverse spread (egg dishes, fruit dishes, salads, etc.) since I was afraid otherwise, most would just stop by a bakery beforehand, and all we’d have was a diverse array of muffins.

I think it turned out well:

The day before the brunch, I whipped together this ridiculously simple Fruit Dip (cream cheese, marshmallow fluff, orange juice and orange zest) that I’ve made countless times. It was sweeter than I remembered, and I might use lemon juice instead of orange juice to cut the sweetness next time or try out one of the other many fruit dip recipes I have lying around. (Yes, I am in possession of multiple fruit dip recipes. No, I do not think this is strange.) But the crowd said nice things. Then again, it was a nice crowd. Alie thought the dip was a great summery addition, and Audrey described it as dipping fruit into a creamsicle.

Next I mixed and rolled Sausage Balls, another easy one. It’s possible that the term “Sausage Balls” doesn’t sound particularly pleasant or edible to you, but they are “a surprising animal” according to David Friedman, the biggest Sausage Ball cheerleader I know. Here’s another way to think of it: a little round biscuit with sausage and cheese baked in. Doesn’t that sound infinitely better? And despite the fact that the crowd kept giggling at Sausage Balls’ ridiculous name, they ate them and proclaimed their love for them. And here’s a tip: my mother was talking to a woman about her Sausage Balls (this is a perfectly normal conversation in the South since everyone makes Sausage Balls there) and how they can cook up dry. The woman said she rolls her balls more loosely to keep them moist, and I found this works. And on that note, we now move on to Orange Chocolate Salad but not without a giant picture of a Sausage Ball first:

I first noticed Clementine Chocolate Salad when Running with Tweezers posted it for the last Weekend Cookbook Challenge. Though I was drawn to it and had half-heartedly considered making it, I couldn’t commit. But when Adam showed up on my doorstep with a sack full of oranges as a thank you for my feeding Pants the cat while he was away, I determined the oranges were a sign from God telling me to make Clementine Chocolate Salad but with navel oranges.

This dish looks simple, but I encountered one problem after another with it—sometimes that happens when you feel pushed for time. I doubled the dish and spent 20 minutes grating chocolate, which is very very boring, and still had only half as much chocolate as I needed. As it turns out, I hate grating chocolate. I will never grate 3.5 ounces of chocolate again. I will either buy it pre-grated (if this product exists) or hire someone to do the grating for me (anyone want that job?—it doesn’t pay, but there’s free Orange Chocolate Salad in it for you.) Then I made the vanilla bean syrup, which was only three ingredients but more trouble than I imagined. On my first try, I cooked it too long trying to get it golden as instructed and ended up with basically Vanilla Bean Jolly Ranchers. So I tossed my creation and made the syrup again, taking it off the burner soon after the sugar dissolved instead of attempting anything golden for fear of wasting more vanilla beans.

Despite the hassle, it was a wonderfully elegant dish that would be especially good at a bridal shower, and people loved the fact that the words “chocolate” and “salad” were used together. But next time, I think I’ll try the version with the fresh mint instead of the chocolate (though the crowd loved the taste of chocolate and oranges together) since I prefer whacking at mint with scissors to grating chocolate.

Next I made a Caramel Coffee Cake, something that sounds far more complicated than it is. All you do is throw yeast rolls in a greased pan, mix together some dry butterscotch pudding and spices, throw them on top of the rolls, then top with melted butter. If you ever make this, you will look at what I just described and think that I must be crazy for insisting that it will turn into a gooey Caramel Coffee Cake. You have to let it rise overnight, and in case you have any reservations about letting the butter that it’s topped with sit out unrefrigerated for hours, Real Simple, one of the premier butter authorities in the world, says it’s okay in their discussion of food myths here (click the link and scroll down.) Evidently, there’s enough salt in salted butter that you can always leave it out, and it will still be fine. As for the coffee cake, when the yeast rolls have risen the next day (appropriate for an Easter meal, no?) into a doughy mass, you will still think I’m crazy for claiming you will have coffee cake after it is cooked. But trust me and put the pan in the oven, let it cook, take it out, flip it out on a plate, ooh and aah, then thank me. I will not hold it against you that you thought I was crazy. Here it is half-eaten, slightly blurry, poorly lit and not nearly as pretty as it is in person (sadly, pictures were an after-thought). But by the end of the party it was gone except for one slice. An excellent sign. Sarah Kate described Caramel Coffee Cake and Orange Chocolate Salad as “can’t-go-wrongs.” I’m thinking about adding that as a category to my blog….

All the day-before prep work complete (sorry for all the jumping around in time), I rested on the seventh day, meaning I tried to sleep around midnight but could not, thinking of all the cleaning and additional food prep work I had to do before 11 a.m. At least I got the coffee and tea station (a transformed IKEA bookshelf) set up in the living room, which I am very proud of because it prevented overflow in the kitchen area and kept the guests happy and caffeinated:

The morning of brunch, the show got under way with minimal sleep and the much-appreciated help of Melissa and Trixie, who assisted me with everything from moving furniture to peeling oranges–somehow the latter turned out to be more difficult than the former. Proof:

As it turns out, Melissa, though a gifted writer and quite adorable, cannot peel an orange to save her life. The above is an example of an orange peeled by Melissa. I had to fire Melissa from her orange-peeling duties and give that job to Trixie who went about scoring them first and making them look more uniform than I thought possible.

However, Melissa was able to redeem herself by expertly opening a bottle of champagne, and she was an immense help with our last-minute assembly of Gorgonzola Grits (another quick dish, but it requires nearly constant attention during its ten-minute prep lifespan), a recipe I got from a Junior League cookbook. I made one with chicken broth, as the recipe told me to, and another version with No-Chicken Broth (the name of the brand) for the vegetarians. I had used the actual chicken broth to poach a chicken earlier in the week, and so, it was an extra-chickeny chicken broth. The grits made with this broth had a very powerful, salty flavor. It made for robust grits—perhaps too robust. But flavorful and unusual in the best sort of way—I’ll just go with a tamer chicken broth next time. The vegetarians loved their less-salty version, one claiming they had converted her to gritsdom and another describing them as “half city/half country—the Donny and Marie of breakfast.” (The No-Chicken Broth made much yellower grits than the real-chicken broth, in case you were wondering about the color difference.)

Soon Mike and Meghann arrived, then Tim, Danielle and Kysa with coffee pot in tow, and it became a rockin’ party from there with people enjoying their mimosas:

and bringing more delicious brunch foods than I knew existed. To give you a sense of what was present, I’ll describe my leftovers. For dinner that night, I had Marissa’s French toast casserole, Sarah Kate’s deviled eggs (with caviar!), Melissa’s spinach salad and a puff pastry stuffed with mushrooms and cheese that magically appeared near the end of brunch. (I have no idea who brought it). For breakfast I had Meghann’s egg casserole and Maggie’s cheddar dill scones. Lunch was Christiane’s quiche, my grits and Shayna’s stuffed cream cheese French toast. For a dessert break I’ll have chocolate cake (Sarah’s?) and/or Leslie’s peach cobbler. And already I’m eyeing the leftovers and imagining what I can create with them—some sort of tart with the fruit dip and strawberries? A cake with a layer of those vanilla meringues? Lucky for the people playing poker at my house later this week….

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Being able to make Risotto Pancakes is one of the great joys of making risotto in the first place. You get to eat leftovers with minimal prep time, but you don’t feel like you’re eating leftovers. In fact, it seems like you’re eating something completely new and wonderful. It’s a great trick to play on yourself.

I’m sure there are some restaurants in the world that have risotto pancakes on the menu, but I’ve never encountered them. I’ve encountered some supplì before (essentially, fried risotto balls with cheese and maybe some sort of veggies stuffed in the middle), and I’ve promised myself over and over that I will take on the labor-intensive task of supplì, but when I have leftover risotto in the fridge, I always end up doing the much easier and quite tasty Risotto Pancakes. It’s hard not to love something that you get to flatten with a spatula and crisps up on the outside.

Assessment: I love Risotto Pancakes, but these weren’t as spectacular the ones I’ve made before. I think it’s my fault because I used half the risotto called for in the recipe but all the egg. These were still good, just a little egg-y. This time, too, I shaped the pancakes from the Easy Risotto I made a few days before (an excellent use of Easy Risotto if ever there was one), and I served Avocado Salad, which I have become completely addicted to, as the accompaniment.

Tim McKeon likes potlucks. He likes potlucks so much that he decided to throw one for his 29th birthday.

I like potlucks too, and I especially like it when somebody else hosts one. That way I can completely trash my kitchen attempting to make something new and complicated and won’t have to worry about trying to clean the place up before company arrives.

Of course, wonderful, easily transported dishes aren’t the easiest things to come by, but I’ve been eyeing the Greek Chicken Strudel recipe in my Williams-Sonoma Complete Entertaining Cookbook for a while—especially appealing is it can be either an appetizer or a light dinner. I told Tim I was thinking about making a fruit salsa, mushroom blintzes or the above strudel. He said, “Ooohhh strudel,” or something to that effect (people like food wrapped in flaky crusts), and the decision was made. And here’s the birthday boy.

My afternoon in the kitchen started out happily enough. It was a nice day, so I opened the windows, turned on the music and sang loudly along (much to my napping neighbor’s dismay, who yelled out, “I’m trying to sleep here!”) while I poached chicken in chicken broth. But I accidentally overpoached the chicken, determined I would use it anyways, then fifteen seconds later decided I absolutely could not use it and went about poaching more chicken.

Then I got to the chopping. There’s lots of chopping involved in this dish: spinach, dill, parsley, green onions. I mixed those ingredients together with the now shredded chicken, seasonings and cheeses (feta and Monterey Jack). Then I tried the mixture. It tasted . . . weird. There was no other way to describe it. I looked at the recipe to see if I left out any ingredients. I had left out the cayenne! So I added the cayenne, certain that this would turn everything around. I tasted the mixture again. Now it tasted like cayenne. I was convinced my dish would bomb, and the only solution was to bring a second dish I knew would succeed in order to redeem myself. You can’t call yourself The Cooking Critic and bring crappy dishes to potlucks. Everybody knows it.

To break up the text, I will now show you a picture of one of the dishes at the potluck.

Jell-o shots.

Back to our show . . .

Halfway hopeful that the Greek Chicken Strudel would convert itself into something amazing when it cooked, I begin to work with the filo pastry. Man, filo is a pain, though quite beautiful in its way. I like how the thin sheets drape over each other when you take them out of the box. I began buttering filo sheets and layering them, trying my best not to tear them (though I did, often) and determined I would taste the strudel once cooked, and then make fool-proof Butterscotch Brownies if my strudel was a dismal failure and guaranteed to invite the ridicule of my friends.

Eventually, the strudel was cooked, I tasted it and was thoroughly pleased with my strudel and myself–it tasted more of fresh herbs than cheese, and the cayenne had morphed into just a hint of spiciness. I’d like to thank eggs for strudel’s transformation, which mellowed the filling when cooked and brought all the ingredients together in the spirit that is strudel. Still, despite the pleasant flavor, I was surprised, though perhaps I shouldn’t have been, to realize that what I made was essentially spanakopita, a Greek pastry stuffed with a spinach blend. I adore spanakopita, but I’ve never tasted a bad version of it. There’s really no need to make it at all. You buy spanakopita. You don’t labor over lining up filo pastry to create your own.

So the party came, and I brought the spanakopita and no brownies. To give you a sense of the party, here are some of the characters that peopled it.

Makes you wish you were there, doesn’t it?

As for my food, I actually considered using a mediocre picture of myself with my strudel, where my strudel looked better than I did and certainly better than it does below—that’s how dedicated I am to my food—but decided that the world should know the crust flaked all over the place and marred the presentation. See for yourself.

I should say here that I didn’t let the strudel rest for 10 minutes like I was told to (the crowd was hungry!), and this might have made the crust break apart more than usual. Also that’s a Post-it note folded over on a toothpick to alert people to a no-nuts version (for people with allergies and people who hate nuts—I think there are more of the latter than the former), a vegetarian version and the full-on version with chicken and nuts.

Assessment: The only way I would make this dish again is: a) If someone requested it, and I really, really liked that person, or b) If there was Mediterranean-themed potluck dinner at someone else’s house, and I couldn’t figure out what else to bring. While Greek Chicken Strudel was certainly tasty, and some people were proclaiming its tastiness throughout the evening, it just doesn’t make the cut on the “worth the effort” scale, especially when you can purchase nearly-as-good spanakopita without any effort at all.

Photos courtesy of Tim and Danielle McKeon.

The End.

You’ve probably heard the rumors about risotto. It’s high-maintenance and constantly needs attention. Just like a woman. You’re always stirring stirring stirring to make risotto, 20 minutes worth of non-stop stirring while you ladle in warm broth intermittingly to get that creamy but al dente texture. Risotto is, indeed, a commitment. Some people will try to make you think it’s not a difficult dish, and there’s truth to this claim since a basic risotto requires few ingredients. But if you aren’t into stirring for 20 minutes (plus additional sautéing and chopping) then you couldn’t possibly be into making risotto.

While I don’t mind all the stirring myself, I had always wondered how necessary it really was. I’ve looked far and wide for an explanation about the necessity of non-stop risotto-stirring (okay, I looked once, and that was today, but I’ve wondered a lot), and while I keep coming across promising websites that insist on the stirring and even acknowledge that you may want to dump all the broth in at once and not stir, no one explains why we stir. My guess? Nobody knows. That’s right—no one in the whole world knows.

Actually, the Home and Garden TV website claims the stirring is required so the risotto doesn’t stick to the pan. But this seems suspect to me. Occasional (and not constant) stirring would prevent sticking. Anyhow, all this is a long way of saying I have found a risotto recipe that doesn’t require stirring and tastes good to me. It’s not as creamy as your average risotto (I believe the stirring is a texture issue, though I can’t find any source to back me up on this), but once I added the Parmesan at the end, I was surprised by how creamy and flavorful this non-stirring version was. With Easy Risotto, you do some initial chopping and sautéing, then pour all the broth into the risotto just as you’ve always been told not to, put a lid on the thing and let it simmer while you do other things for twenty minutes (the freedom!), and you return to cooked risotto.

Adjustments: The most significant adjustment was the addition of more liquid because when I made this once before, the risotto cooked up kind of dry. And if I’m going to add more liquid, I might as well add an interesting liquid, so ¼ cup of white wine got thrown into the pot. Instead of water and chicken bouillon, I used canned chicken stock. Also diced regular onions replaced green onions.

Assessment: As I’ve been typing this entry, I’ve debated, would I recommend this for company? No doubt, I will make this for myself again, but others? Here’s the answer: if you are making risotto as an entrée, then get to stirring because it’s the centerpiece of your meal and you need to do it right. If you’re offering risotto as a side (and especially if you have other more important dishes that require last-minute attention before dinner is served) make Easy Risotto. I suspect no one will know the difference. Even my friends who cook are not risotto snobs (to my knowledge, well, maybe Meghann Barloewen is a risotto snob–she always seems to be making risotto anyways), so I think they would be fine with this and may very well not notice the difference.

>>Buy the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook.

In The Lord of the Rings fashion, I’m going to begin the second part of “Who Will Be the Grilled Cheese Champion?” without a recap on the previous part. Instead please read part one of “Who Will Be the Grilled Cheese Champion?” by clicking here.

Back to “Who Will Be the Grilled Cheese Champion?” part two…

Next up was the third heat for sweet sandwiches. Shayna, Shahan and I took care of this leg, creating the most efficient grilled cheese assembly line ever known to man. It went like this: Shayna grilled the quesadillas, flipped them off the grill onto a plate, then put a new quesadilla in the pan, while I cut the quesadilla into wedges with scissors, then drizzled raspberry sauce on them. Next Shahan shook the powdered sugar, I added a dollop of whipped cream on each, Shahan raised the flag to alert a runner and Shayna was already taking the next quesadilla out of the pan. If there’s a grilled cheese zone, we were in it. Sadly, our flag and half of Shahan’s face got cut out of the picture, but here’s what we basically looked like in all our grilled-cheese making glory:

Not that we didn’t have some minor glitches. The hosts of this event informed us butter would be available for all. I had a sneaking suspicion that when they said “butter,” they meant “margarine” and had intended to bring my own butter since margarine will never ever do. Happily, my sneaking suspicion was correct. Sadly, I forgot to bring the butter. Still, when an enormous slab of real butter magically appeared in front of me, I determined this must be the secret communal butter stash and picked it up. As it turns out, this was not secret communal butter because it was whisked immediately out of my hands by another contestant and placed out of my reach. Luckily, a man to our right, making grilled cheese sandwiches in cube form, gave us his whole container of creamed butter when he was done making his sandwiches. Butter at last!

Another minor glitch–we nearly ran out of raspberry sauce and got stingy with it, as you can see here:

As for sweet sandwiches, one was made with slices of bread pudding and had a vanilla sauce and was nice and mild, but the sandwich had little to do with cheese. There was also an unusually sharp sandwich with dark bread, feta, cooked pears and a very tangy caramel sauce.

Finally the votes were tabulated. Team We Aim To Cheese waited anxiously for our name to be called . . . but we weren’t named winners of the standard grilled cheese competition, which made sense since we didn’t enter that field. Then came the alternative sandwich champions . . . and sadly, no glory for We Aim to Cheese. The sweet category finally arrived. The emcees called the third place winner . . . not us! Then right before they announced the second place winner, the emcee said, “This is my favorite sandwich name,” and we knew it was Requiem for a Cream…Cheese Quesadilla. Indeed, it was. I went on stage to receive the second-place trophy, and Brandon doused me in champagne to celebrate the victory. I was very cold but pleased the rest of the night.

Then the emcees called out the first place winners, and two girls in bikinis ran up to the stage, squealing with excitement. They looked something like this:

Picture that times two.

For some reason, we thought we could win looking like this:

The lesson we learned: team aprons are certainly not bikinis. Also, bring digital cameras, so we don’t have to worry about crooked, scanned images later.

I’m not even sure what sandwich the girls in bikinis made since ingredients were not announced during the award presentation, but I suspect no one knew what sort of sandwich they made. What happened to the good old days, when grilled cheese competitions were about the grilled cheese and not about the girls in bikinis?

At least we know what we have to do next year.

Recipes: Here’s a variation of Rob’s Breaded Pirate Roberts/Mozzarella in Carrozza , and here’s the family recipe for Cream Cheese Bars that inspired my quesadillas. For the quesadilla variation, I cooked the cream cheese mixture described in the Cream Cheese Bars link like a soufflé in a greased 8 x 8 pan for 25-30 minutes, then stuffed the cream cheese mixture into folded tortillas (roughly 1/3 cup per tortilla), cooked the tortilla on both sides on the stovetop (in butter), removed from heat, drizzled this super-simple Raspberry Sauce on it, sifted some powdered sugar over top, then finished with a squeeze of whipped cream. Here’s what Shahan has to say about Requiem for a Cream…Cheese Quesadillas: “It is good.” Now if that doesn’t convince you to try these, I don’t know what will.

Photos by Jim Sutherland, Leslie Limerick and Ezra Freedman.

>>Buy Real Fast Food by Nigel Slater or Open House: A Culinary Tour by The Junior League of Murfreesboro.

Team We Aim To Cheese was primed for the 2nd 3rd Annual Grilled Cheese competition. We had gone through a very successful practice session without a hitch. We had participated in vigorous exercise to keep ourselves alert and ready. We had named Rob’s fresh mozzarella/French toast entry (normally called mozzarella in carrozza) “The Breaded Pirate Roberts” in an obscure nod to The Princess Bride and my cheesecake-like quesadilla “Requiem for a Cream . . . Cheese.” We had completed complicated math equations involving cross-multiplication to make sure my recipe fulfilled the minimum 60% cheese requirement. It was 72. Victory seemed near. And then we entered the 2nd 3rd Annual Grilled Cheese Invitational through this industrial-but-artsy door:

What Team We Aim to Cheese found at the Grilled Cheese Invitational was an outdoor grilling area (much to Adam’s short-sleeved shirted dismay) with roughly twenty stations, a grilled cheese roster with three heats and sixty or so competitors and even cheerleaders to cheer on a friend’s sandwich (or cheeseleaders, as they prefer to be called):

Also, there was one leprechaun:

The first heat of the competition involved only standard grilled cheese—no fancy bread, no crazy cheeses, no additional ingredients. People grilled four sandwiches, cut them into quarters, put a wedge of sandwich on a paper plate with a voting document already stapled to it, lifted a flag, and a runner would whisk the plates to the taste-testing station to be judged by the crowd.

Team We Aim to Cheese wasn’t so interested in this heat because we had no one competing in it. But we, like the rest of the crowd, got to judge the sandwiches on taste, presentation, originality (less important for this heat) and spazziness (for ridiculously awful sandwiches.) Sandwich eating was no easy feat since it required standing in a line that ran the length of a very long building all to get a quarter of a sandwich that may or may not taste very good. When you got to the front of the line, you were directed toward a sandwich quarter and voted on the spot, and then went back to the end of line to wait about twenty minutes for another quarter of sandwich. Here’s the taste-testing station:

Next came the second heat for savory alternative sandwiches with Rob and Maggie representing We Aim to Cheese. Competition included a Lucky Charms sandwich, which was coated in blue crystals on the outside and tasted surprisingly good, though it seemed to have little to do with Lucky Charms. There was also a brie, grilled chicken and marmalade sandwich, which was, uh, fine. There were numerous sandwiches, though I can’t seem to recall many of them right now. But here’s Rob and Maggie cooking up a storm in the grilling arena:

Will Team We Aim to Cheese be victorious? Will the best grilled cheese win? Will the leprechaun find his pot of gold? Stay tuned for the next installment of “Who Will Be the Grilled Cheese Champion?” coming soon (most likely tomorrow but no promises.)

Photos by Leslie Limerick, Jim Sutherland and Brandon Oropallo.