[Sca-cooks] Siege Cooking Contest at Lilies

[nickiandme at att.net]

Greetings all,

I sponsored the Siege cooking competition at Lilies yesterday morning (Monday).  The point about being able to point at but not pick is that in Missouri and Iowa and many other states - you cannot pick wildflowers, plants, etc at public parks and campgrounds. So, the prohibition against picking and making sure you bought it or grew it in your own yard.

I took my film in to be developed earlier today.  I should have it back by Friday.  I am specifing a CD with it - so I should be able to get a web page up with a full description and photos of the competition sometime early next week.

I am still wore out from the heat and humidity.

We got the competition in on Monday without any storms horning in on our little world of cooking fun.

We had four teams compete.  I was truly amazed at the quality of the result.  It surpassed my expectations completely.  None of these four teams had competed in the previous 3 Iron Chef competitions (that I had previously organized in Calontir.)  I don't believe any of the recipes was duplicated.  Number of dishes produced ranged from 8 to 12.  Each team could have served their entries at feast and everyone would have raved about their feast.   My judges certainly raved.  I'll put more details on the web page when I get it up.

The ingredients supplied:

chicken - 1 whole
bacon - 1 / 2 pound of fresh (ie: not smoked)
eggs  - 6
ricotta cheese - 1 pound
lard - 1 pound

unbleached flour - 6 cups
wholewheat flour - 3 cups
sugar - 2 cups
salt - 1/4 cup
peppercorns - 1/8 cup

onions - 3 yellow onions
garlic - 2 whole knobs
fresh peas - 2 cups
leeks - 2 large
knob of ginger - large
fava beans - 1 & 1/2 cups 
strawberries - 1 pound

Fresh Sage
Fresh Lovage
Fresh Savory
Fresh Thyme
Chives
Parsley
dried whole Oregano
fresh Basil
anise seed
caraway seed
poppyseed
walnuts/almonds
currants

red wine vinegar - 1 cup
olive oil - 16 ounces
1 gallon water

I am thinking about sponsoring this competition again next year. I have a couple of people who would like to co-sponsor it with me also. Discussions are currently underway to change the list of ingredients (wouldn't want to become predictable! ;-) and allow for more teams.  Some discussion items were to allow two heats with four teams competing in each heat. Heats would all have the same box of ingredients. Heats would run on different days with the two winning teams competing against each other on yet another day with a completely different box of ingredients.

Next year all the teams will be expected to set up their kitchens in the A&S area. IF there is not a fire ban in effect - we will be able to have the teams set up individual firepits.  Teams were allowed to set up their kitchens before the offical starting time.  Starting times were staggered in half hour increments to keep the cooking times the same and to allow the judges a half hour to judge a team's entry.  This part of it worked out very well.

Well, more later - gotta get back to the work drill.

Kateryn de Develyn
Super proud of the teams and their entries.