In Honor of a New "Top Chef"...

So, in honor of a new "Top Chef" on tonight, I thought i'd blog about my Top Chef: Emporia experience. And what an experience it was.

First off, it started with me climbing the stairs on a Monday morning to my Mass Comm. class and seeing a flier on the wall, announcing a Quickfire challenge in the Union that afternoon. I think, why the hell not? So I go about my day and was going through the Union a little later in the afternoon. I see the table set up, and I was like, Oh yeah! I'm gonna do that! So the challenge? To smell and identify20 herbs and spices. Just smell and look at herbs and spices. That was a lot of fun. So, I hand my sheet into the people and I wait.

So, a couple of days later, I get this e-mail that says i'm 1 of 6 people in the finals! So a few days later, we meet with the people putting it on, the UAC and Sudexo. We learned that we were doing a pasta challenge, and we have 45 minutes to put together our pasta with one secret ingredient that we can bring. My choice secret ingredient? Tomato Sauce. That's right. Tomato Sauce. My pasta that I made? Pizza Pasta! (See the recipe in one of the first posts).

So, a few days after this is "Game Day". We met up in the Union at like 7 or something like that. We got to walk around the space and see our stations. We had a Bounty table that we could go back and forth to. I ended up using sausage, hamburger, spaghettie, olives, mushrooms, basil, orangeno, garlic, toamotes, and a bunch of cheese. And I think that was it. So we all had 45 minutes to cook. The pasta was all pre-cooked so that was nice, as was the meat. That way we didn't have to worry about that. So basically I cooked my sauce first and then heated up my pasta and then mixed the two together. And then plated and served.

I'm not sure how I ended up against everyone, but I know I had A LOT of fun.

So here's a couple of pictures
And that's my Top Chef experience!

Till the next time,
Happy Eating!