Drunk Dial

Last night, as I was into my third Anchor Steam and Tiffany into her second Jack and Diet, we exchanged a series of text messages that resulted in a full Saturday of all things cooking. She drove down to Oakland today for what turned out to be the first of several Top Chef Quickfire Challenges. It started off as just "cooking a fun dinner together," but while at Grand Lake Farmers Market, Anne had the idea of doing an appetizer challenge. So Anne laid out the rules: one vegetable, one dairy, and one other element in the appetizers. She obviously thought she would get to eat all of her favorite foods in one place, but she forgot who was cooking. Tiffany and I, being aware of our amateur status, agreed on both using eggplant and seeing what the other would do with it (Top Chef meets Iron Chef). In addition, we totally knew that eggplant was one of Anne's LEAST favorite foods, and being the sole judge of the challenge, we said fuck it, she needs to eat what we make for her. So we did our shopping, and prior to the start of the challenge, we paid a visit to East Bay Restaurant Supply Co for some important pieces of equipment, and happened upon JC Cellars/Dashe Winery in Oakland as well. So we bought some tools and drank some wine, and then came home to start our cooking.

I decided to make Eggplant Dippers: breaded, fried eggplant spears with a mushroom dipping sauce. Tiffany went with Eggplant Bruschetta: baked eggplant rounds with goat cheese and tomato shallot salsa. Tiffany won.

My dippers lacked breading, and the whole thing looked like puke. (See picture above). Tiffany's had color, lots of complex flavors, and didn't look like puke. I think I got points for originality, but hers took the cake.

Moral of the story: you can visualize and plan, seing your food coming out a certain way, but if you've never done it before, chancing of it actually working out are pretty slim. P.S. - the kitchen was a mess after just one appetizer. Imagine what 4 courses will bring. P.P.S. - the dinner that we cooked together - roast chicken, roasted sweet potatoes and green beans - rocked the house.

All in all, an amazing day.