The Cooking Critic

I have strange whims. Such as the one I recently had to jump in my car and go to the Gilroy Garlic Festival.

But not with this man. Instead, I got to see one of my oldest friends in the world, Sammy, and his lovely wife Jean. Here are our feet.

Yes, I’m wearing black toe nailpolish. No, I don’t know why.

And here’s my lunch–every single item (tri-tip steak sandwich, pesto pasta, calamari, garlic bread and sauteed mushrooms) has a whopping dose of garlic.

The garlic festival probably isn’t the best place to bring a date, what with the garlic breath and all. Carnivores, however, are welcome.

Also welcome? Fire!

These guys are Pyro Chefs. It was HOT outside even without overseeing a giant fire.

The heat, in fact, might explain this line for the garlic ice cream.

I’m at the end of it. The phrase “garlic ice cream” is underneath the word “free” in the distance. I guess it’s not too surprising that they have to give the stuff away. And here’s the ice cream and some shadows.

One of us evidently broke out into dance just as I was taking this picture. Also, my hands are ugly. Why are my hands so ugly?

But I got to give these garlic festival people props on the garlic ice cream. Granted, the first bite is bizarre, but once you get over the hump, it’s surprisingly good, with just the right balance of savory and sweet.

If you want to read more about the garlic festival (as well as onion, tomato and bourbon festivals), you can check out an article I wrote here. This is a lame way to end my post, but I’m going with it.

I had grand plans for this year’s Guac Bowl. My wasabi guacamole was going to herald in a new era of ethnic-fusion guac for Guac Bowl participants, then, the world! People would proclaim my genius! Ask for the recipe! Give me a show on The Food Network! But, alas, things did not go according to plan.

While practicing for the premier guacamole competition in the world, I attempted my “Turning Guacanese” guacamole with various types of wasabi: a wasabi paste from a tube, a wasabi powder, a wasabi-and-balsamic-reduction and that Play-Doh-like wasabi clump that comes with sushi. I determined the latter produced the best wasabi flavor–less-preservative-y than the tube, less heinous smelling than the powder, not as outrageously potent as the reduction. First-place glory seemed near!

Sunday morning I arose, made my guac without incident (unlike last year), but little did I know, the wheels of disaster were already in motion–competitors with similar wasabi guac foresight and a lust for victory were making their guac as I made mine! Unknowing, I went to my old neighborhood of Atwater Village for Adam’s annual Guac Bowl and set up shop with my very zen-looking entry, which Tim said would win “Classiest” if there were such a category. There is not.

I look so hopeful.

The entries trickled in: “Guactopus” had impressive homemade ceramic tendrils groping from the guac, frozen savory “Guacsicles” were disgusting, the “Walking Talking Guac King” featured a live little boy threatening to cry if you didn’t vote for Adam’s guac, which was attached to the child’s head by way of a sombrero. There were, in fact, numerous entries, but most rather complicated to describe, so please check them out here.

The guacs kept coming, and then, disaster struck! In walked Lauren and Dave with “Domo Ariguaco, Mr. Roboto,” featuring both a braver dose of wasabi than my timid attempt AND pickled ginger. You could smell the defeat in the air. Or maybe that was just the guac.

Soon after, Kevin’s “Guaczilla” stomped in with an even heartier dose of wasabi–as Marissa described it: “That’s just wasabi with a little bit of avocado mixed in.” And while the guac seemed a better fit for clearing up sinuses than as a food to eat for pleasure, the presentation was impressive. Wires, plumbing pipes, duct tape, newspaper and twine formed the body’s structure with guac patted around it–the skin of the avocado served as the skin of the lizard. As a final touch, olives were used as eyes.

Someone (who? I cannot remember.) said that Lauren, Dave and I (but absolutely not Kevin) helped prove that Asian and Mexican flavors can peacefully–no, successfully–co-exist together. Thank you, kind stranger, but words bring little comfort at this time.

Then, all the wasabi guacs met their real match in the alternative category–it’s not fiery flavors people crave after all, it’s sweet. “Guacolate Chip Ice Cream” arrived, a surprisingly light and delicious sweet avocado ice cream (though does using avocados necessarily make it guac? I don’t know….) that was downright refreshing after sampling so many heavy savory guacamoles. I even voted for it.

The ballots cast, Adam announced the winners. Lauren, Dave and I tied for second in the alternative category for our wasabi guacs—I’m surprised we didn’t cancel each other out all together. Here’s how the rest shook out:

Best Tasting, Tradtional: Shahan Sanossian’s unnamed guacamole
Best Tasting, Alternative: “Guacolate Chip Ice Cream,” Steve Shoffner and Lara Minassian
Best Presentation: “Guaczilla,” Kevin Seccia
The Icarus Award (or Most Terrible): “Guacsicles,” Shahan Sanossian

Also of note, Dakota built a fountain of guac, called “Guac Grotto,” by rewiring a chocolate fountain so it wouldn’t heat his thin yogurt-based guacamole. As Graham said, “If a fountain of guac can’t win, I’m out.”

And just because I find it vaguely interesting, here’s what Wikipedia has to say about wasabi: “Wasabi paste bears a superficial resemblance to guacamole, a popular staple of Mexican-style cuisine, a similarity which can lead to an unpleasant surprise for those unfamiliar with Japanese cuisine.” And also: “Wasabi ice cream is a recent but increasingly popular innovation.”

Perhaps next year we can expect a wasabi guacolate chip ice cream? We will see….

Guac Bowl season is upon us! (Please see this link to last year’s competition if you have no idea what I’m talking about.) My L.A. friends are thinking only of guac these days as we contemplate puns, secret ingredients and ridiculous contraptions for our guacamole entries in the fiercest guacamole competition this side of the Mississippi, or perhaps, the world!

I’m going for my fourth win–I believe I hold the record at three, but I’m sure I’ll be corrected if I’m wrong. I would say I’m going for my fourth and fifth win except that I’ve opted for a pretty presentation that actually looks like something you’d want to eat (yes, yes, I know–I’m so predictable), so I imagine there’s no way I can win best presentation. I fully expect best presentation to go to a full-size float made of guac. Somebody has got to be planning one.

Here’s my winning entry from last year.

And can I just complain a bit about the price of avocados these days? Not to mention the unfortunate taste and texture of them! I bought a little bag of Trader Joe’s avocados, and it took a week and a half before they were soft enough to cut open. And even then they were weird and rubbery, and I had to throw them out. I will pray every night this week for soft, tasty avocados come Guac Bowl day. And I will give all my competitors a tip out of the kindness of my heart: Buy your avocados very soon, if you haven’t already, and fold them up in a brown bag to help them ripen. Don’t put them in a plastic bag, as I stupidly did one year–I only succeeded in suffocating them. Who knew you can suffocate avocados? Also, an fyi, according to The New Food Lover’s Companion: “It is not true that burying the avocado pit in the guacamole helps to maintain good color.” So douse your guacs in citrus, people! It gives it that beautiful green glow!
How did this entry turning into me passing valuable information on to my competitors when I was planning to talk trash the entire time? I do not know.

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.

Everyone knows you have to practice in order to demolish your opponents. The newly named Team “We Aim To Cheese” did just that (practice, no demolishing yet) one rainy Monday evening. Of the three grilled cheese categories at the Grilled Cheese Invitational (or GCI for short) hosted in Downtown Los Angeles on April 1, we are entering two. Categories are: standard grilled cheese, alternative grilled cheese and dessert grilled cheese. We fully intend to win the last two categories by virtue of our delicious sandwiches, but certainly the hilarious names we voted on will also assist us. The GCI, to my understanding, is one big party with stovetop stations for grilled cheese making, and you have to produce at least four cheesy sandwiches divided into fourths. When you finish grilling a grilled cheese, a little flag goes up, a runner comes to the table and the sandwich is distributed to the crowd to be eaten and judged. There’s also a cash bar, but I’m foggy on the rest of the details. Rest-assured, those of you dying to know more about the GCI, I’ll report back with clearer details once my team and I return victorious from said gathering.

Obviously, I can’t give too many details about our sandwiches or their names at this juncture since I’m sure competitors are trolling my blog in an attempt to learn our secrets and foil us. Instead I will provide you with a picture story of our evening with captions.

Here are the cooks (note Rob’s spiffy apron and look of suspicion:

and Christine’s amazing ability to change her eye color to match her top):

Here are some of the eaters and fellow teammates reacting to the grilled cheeses with shock:

and amazement:

Here Maggie lounges with a strawberry, contemplates team names and secretly hopes that someone will hang grapes over her head while she eats them at her leisure:

Here I will give the full name of the people in attendance, so if they are Googled, the Googler will be led to my blog: Rob Saccenti, Leslie Limerick, Jim Sutherland, Steve Hanna, Michael Zimmer, and Luke Godwin (who thinks he should get royalties for use of his name in this blog. When I told him no one else suggested such things, he said his name was worth far more than anyone else’s. He said it. It’s true.) Actually, that’s only about half the people in attendance. The others have already been mentioned by full name on this blog (or their last names are not known to me), so they can’t help me with Googlers. But so they won’t get mad at me, I’ll give their first names: Shahan, Maggie, Shayna, Stacey, Adam, and Brandon.

And here’s why other Grilled Cheese Invitational contestants should be fearful at the thought of competing against us:

Look at those beautiful, well-named, tasty sandwiches.

And another reason competitors should fear us? We have team aprons. That’s right. Team. Aprons. First the 3rd 2nd Annual Grilled Cheese Competition, next the world!

My alternative guacamole reigned supreme at Guac Bowl ’06 and all is right with the world. First, a quick recap of the winners (very punny for the uninitiated):

Best Traditional Guacamole: Guac Cousteau (Lisa and Jason VanBorssum)
Best Presentation: Guactanamo Bay (Melissa MacRae)
Best Alternative Guac: Tequila Guacingbird (me! Me me me me!)
Icarus Award (for the one who flew too close to the sun): Guac-king Stuffers (or stockings filled with peppermint guac and Christmas carols playing in the background, Brandon Oropallo)

Let me take you through my day:

Woke up. Made guacamole. This year I was going to use a really basic recipe (avocados, red onions, jalapeño, lemon, cilantro, salt) and just add a couple of teaspoons of tequila with the alcohol cooked out to make it alternative. I used a Meyer lemon thinking this was my second secret weapon next to the tequila since Meyer lemons are supposed to be the best lemons in the world. As it turns out, I wouldn’t recommend using a Meyer lemon in guacamole. Meyer lemons should stick to desserts.

Between the Meyer lemon and the tequila, my guac was the most mouth-puckering thing you’ve ever tasted. So, I panicked. I tried to fix this first with salt, then more avocado, then more salt. Then desperately I threw in cumin and garlic powder. I eyed the remains of the Taco Seasoning Mix I made recently, and that got tossed in the bowl too. Then more cumin. Then it tasted too much like cumin, so I had to add another avocado. More cilantro, onion and salt followed. At one point, I lost my mind and added more tequila and lemon. I simply can’t explain what was going through my head at this point. So I sat there staring at what was sure to be losing guacamole trying to think of something to combat the tartness. Sour cream and mayonnaise came to mind, but being tangy in their own right, this made absolutely no sense. So I thought about lemon squares and margaritas and what kept the lemon flavor from seeming sour. Sugar! I poured in sugar. Relief—it tasted better! So more and more sugar was poured into the mix until the guacamole became mildly addictive.

When I got to Guac Bowl held at the Adam Pava residence, which is the premier food event of Atwater Village—why I’m not hosting the premier food event of Atwater, no one knows—there were already some strong competitors in place. The Guac-Ness Monster sat steaming in a bath of dry ice, ambrosia guac tasted shockingly better than expected, guacaroni and cheese was still warm and one of the two Guactanamo Bays was already taking up a fourth of the table space. I set out my tequila shot glasses filled with guac, stuck some birds I got from an arts and craft store in a few glasses and hoped for the best.

Competition got stiffer as the afternoon progressed with pomegranate guac, grilled cactus guac, blood orange and fennel guac and a guac called The Emancipation Guaclimation that stood in protest of the entire Guac Bowl organization and its desire to turn the usually passive guacamole into instruments of competition. There were many other amazing entries, but this blog entry is already long, and I simply can’t name them all.

Ballots were secret and clearly marked, and the winners were announced at halftime. I now have an enormous trophy of a man holding a wreath who appears only to be wearing underwear. Perhaps he’s a swimmer? And I’d post my guac recipe if I remembered how in the world I made it. I hope y’all enjoyed it while it lasted. It was a one-time thing.

And I think Pittsburgh won the football game that some people seemed to be watching.

(For Adam’s pictures, go to: homepage.mac.com/pundog.)