Cannibal Feast?

After about two years, we finally did Chef of the Month again on Sunday. We thought four entries was pretty good for starters, and we are confident that the competition will be much fiercer at the next Chef of the Month, in October. We elected Corrie as our judge, however we may look at enlisting some more judges if things start to get really serious - if the TAB get in touch with us asking to list our competition on their books for instance...

We had two categories; mains and desert.

Mark's bacon and cheese muffins were great: it was the bacon that made them a winner. I didn't get to taste them, but they looked pretty darn good. There were none left when I came (late) to lunch, so that's evidence that other people share my view.

Andy's pasta: disaster struck with this little number, I had it cooking on the hot element thing during the Lord's Supper. I had some pretty queasy feelings about it while we were finishing off church, and when I went back to stir it, it was completely stuck and burnt on the bottom. Sorry about the burnt pot mum. But hey, the rest of the pasta was fine and even carried off first prize. The only thing it lacked, Corrie told me, was a bit of green. It was a bit boring looking Andy, but it tasted great. Which just goes to show, burning things is fine so long as noone knows.

Beautifully presented, this huge plate of fairy bread got 2nd prize in the desert category. There was just the right amount of hundreds and thousands on it, and not too much butter. Zephaniah, who didn't seem so enthusiastic at first, had a second look at the bread and took a peice. There were a lot of comments about the fairy bread, it seems that it's not just a kid's thing. In fact, the adults were quite happily tucking into it. It seems that making fairy bread is potentially hazardous: Ellie says she spilled hundreds and thousands on the floor, and it would have been pretty dangerous if anyone had tripped on them.

It was close on 10:30 pm and I was using the Kenwood Chef to make the meringue for the lemon merinue pie, trying to dissolve the sugar like you're supposed to and getting jolly impatient. The noise was like an airoplane taking off and there was this annoying thumping of the metal blade that accompnied it. Andy was ostensibly chopping up onions for his pasta, but he actually had a spoon in his hand and was hovering over the meringue mixture as it spun round. When I wasn't looking, he quickly stuck the spoon into the mixture. Unfortunatley, the diabolical machine wrenched the spoon from his hand and kept on mixing with the spoon in the meringue. The noise at this point was like a car factory blowing up. Andy was jumping up and down, horrified I suppose. I turned off the machine and dug out the spoon, and then we licked it, because meringue tastes a whole lot better uncooked. Anyway, the pie won first prize in the desert category. If there were more entries it wouldn't have that's for sure, because the pie ended up looking, as I remarked to Ellie, like the remains of a cannibal feast.

Corrie said that Mrs. Pollard's smoked chicken sandwiches would have taken first prize for the mains category, had they been entered into the competition. They had relish and mustard in them and were fantastic.

All said and done, the quality of this church lunch was great... but it would be even better next time if we could get some of those competitors from a couple of years back cooking again, and some new competitiors?

Save the life of my child

The presure is on. Chef of the Month is relaunching this Sunday, 7 September o8'. It just hit me that CotM should have an ideal chef to venerate, and as we'v just watched the utterly incredible Bella movie, the chef in that should hold 1st place. Eduardo Verestagui plays Jose, a thoughtful and compassionate chef who spends a day with a young woman, recently pregnant and considering an abortion, and helps her to understand why life is so important. The amazing thing is that the actor, Eduardo, is a Christian who has saved the life of a child by talking to a couple about abortion. He was researching his part and had gone along to an abortion clinic, when he met these people. He showed them what he showed Nina in the film: there are other ways, and life is better. When the baby was born they called him Eduardo.

And yes, in the movie Jose does have seriously big facial hair. A friend calls him "the man with the mysterious beard".

Chef of the Month Relaunch

"Hi. Welcome to the future. San Dimas, California, 2688. And I'm telling you, it's great here. The air is clean. The water's clean. Even the dirt... is clean. Bowling averages are way up. Mini-golf scores are way down. And we have more excellent waterslides than any other planet we communicate with. I'm telling you, this place is great." - Rufus, from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

Hi dudes, we've officially started Chef of the Month after slacking off for two years! Death to procrastination. The only difference is that we've got a cool new blog which will hopefully be updated every month, and we are going to get ourselves a judge. Watch out Corrie. Basically, we'll be doing the same stuff that we were doing two years ago. I've taken over Andy as the editor of the blog, but I'll be looking for input from you all.

Next shared lunch is 7 September, so get busy in the kitchen! I'll finish off with another quote...

John: I say we drink the wine, eat the dogs, and use the paper for musket wadding.
Reverend: eat the dogs!
Benjamin Martin: A dog is a fine meal.
Reverend: Good Heavens!
- from The Patriot (2000)

What is Chef of the Month?

The idea of the "chef of the month" award, is to theoretically raise the standard, quality, (and perhaps even the quantity) of the food at Grace Baptist Church's (GBC) monthly pot-luck lunches. That's not to say that the food wasn't up to much. Still, you can always improve - and it's good to get a bit of practice in - for us guys anyway. I should say, first off, that this plan - competition, what have you, is completely informal, and does not in any way reflect on all the members of the church. What it is, then, is just a few of the "younger" people in the church, (not ruling out the possibility of "older" people joining in), having a reason to bring something along, and a casual consensus among them, upon whose "entry", or dish was the best. Several points will be considered:

• taste
• presentation
• nutritional value
  
• quantity
• popularity
• difficulty of preparation
• possible time constraints

April 2006

Pretty brief update for April - as yet. Am waiting on John for a few photos... And coupled with the fact that there's only 3 minutes and 40 seconds until it's Sunday again, I'm leaving this update as is, till I get a few pics which should motivate me to write something more... meaningful.

• Lydia: apple shortcake (dusted with icing sugar; a classic)
• Andrew: pizza (from scratch)
• John: pav
• Roz: sushi! (you've got to love that green sauce)

by Andy

March 2006

Lunch this Sunday was of a pretty good standard. Admittedly, we have seen better, but there was good range, albeit lacking colour and flair... I accidentally and irretrievably deleted most of the photos I took of the food today, leaving only one - this one.



Andrew Sinclair brought a basket of filled buns. If I knew how, I'd have fiddled round with the picture, so that with a mouse rollover, little arrows with names would pop up, - but I don't.

Lyd brought two quiches - without question, an outstanding contribution. There's some of one of them, in the lower right corner.

John, delivered a bowl of pasta. Last night he'd said that if he could find some eggs, he'd whip up one of his pavalovas. Next time John?

Simon and I made a coleslaw this morning. It's in the bowl with the grated carrot - in the center, behind John's dish. It's got yogurt-mayonnaise dressing.

by Andy

February 2006

John Sinclair delivered a bowl of coleslaw. While you may agree with John and myself in thinking that it doesn't look fantastic, you'd be wrong if you thought that it's cosmetics relate in any way to it's flavour. The fried pumpkin seeds made it stand out, John. A great side dish, with top marks for the decievingly apathetic way it was presented. In terms of popularity with the Joe Public, when everyone had finished, there was the bowl with a little bit of coleslaw in the bottom, and the gladwrap on top. As they say, actions speak louder...

Andrew Sinclair created a bowl of - very nice stuff that I don't know the name of - below. Any simple fool can see Andrew's outstanding Aesthetics shining through in his creation here. I don't know if you'd go as far as saying that the decorations were not very manly. - I said "I don't know". Very tastefully presented The "very nice stuff that I don't know the name of" consists mainly of grated cheese and carrot, with boiled egg throughout - and on top, - and who knows what else? Far as I can remember, there wasn't any of Andrew's very nice stuff that I don't know the name of left at the end of it all.

Last minute Italian fare was my contribution to the already crowded table. Lyd made the sign for me - it says: Oregano Tomato Pasta - a very original Italian name, I thought... Maybe Andromedo Italiano would be more fitting? Anyway, I got up at 6am this morning to wack this cute wee number together. People seemed to like it. Which was good.

The table was well laden today, and we gathered up many baskets of left-overs. All three of the above dishes got positive comments, - and into people's stomachs, which is a good thing.

Lyd whipped something up too, and, being in a different genre, I can hardly rate it against the other three entries. American Chocolate Brownie. Very nice with a cup of tea, there weren't enough pieces toward the end, and the last few people had to content themselves with half-pieces. They were nice sizey pieces, too, - that plate is a large dinner plate...

All up, a particularly appetising spread. I think it would be fair to call Lyd the chef of the month - virtually everyone wanted a piece.

by Andy

December 2005

John Sinclair made a pasta "salad" - mushrooms, twirly pasta and some mushrooms, decorated with a bit of parsley. John modestly described it as looking like a dog's breakfast. I'm not a dog, so I can't really comment on the taste side of it, but. It did look quite nice, though.


Andrew Sinclair made a "Mexican lasagna". As you can see from this excellent vantage point, we have a layer of beans, then corn chips, then more beans, more chips, more beans, then mashed potato. Topped with a generous sprinkle of pepper, and loaded up with cheese, this was definitely "up there" in the polls.

I made a pizza. Might not look like your typical pizza. This one's like two pizzas stuck together, the top one upside-down, stuck onto the bottom one - and I stuck the cheese on the top, otherwise it would've looked to plain. Had pineapple, bacon, cheese, can of tomatoes and some fried onion - Mum actually made the dough for me, but there you go.

The general verdict was that Andrew S.'s lasagna came in at the top. The majority of his votes came from the "older people". My pizza followed pretty close behind as far as I could tell, with most of my votes from the younger people. John's dish, as we pretty unanimously agreed, was in a different league from the others. Mark mentioned that it wouldn't be fair to judge our entries against Johns, seeing as John's was so good. His actions, however, did not speak as loud as his words. The bitter reality of it was that a good half of John's dish was left over. But that was cool.

I reckon, that for presentation, Andrew S. would get top marks, followed by John - the parsley.

SPECIAL ONCE OFF FEATURE

There weren't any other entries. Though, it would be almost wrong of me not to include a picture of a cake Maria brought - which was very nice... I turned nineteen, you know.


by Andy

November 2005

We had two entries - a fairly sizey tuna and potato pie made by Lydia, and another "pie" submitted by John. There were no other entries - time constraints were factors on a couple of us not cooking anything. So, with a bit of un-official and pretty unorganised debate, we labeled the November GBC CMA (Chef of the Month Award) a practice run, with the real thing hopefully kicking off in the month of December.

Lyd's pie was - heck, it's diameter might have been that of a 30cm ruler. And you would have to drop your jaw about 10cm to take a bite. The pastry was great. There was lots of, you know, stuff that goes in a tuna and spud pie. basically tuna and spuds. There was probably some spices and perhaps a bit of spring onion. The general consensus on her pie was - presentation, it looked good. Not all of us had it though, so the cosmetics of it are pretty much all I can document. I had the second last piece, and it tasted very nice

John's "pie". It's in quotation marks, because that was what he called it. It was more of a "slice". It was in a fairly deep oven pan - tray - thing, and would have required about 3cm of jaw movement. You couldn't give this one marks on presentation, a) because it was still in the pan it was cooked in, and b) it didn't look over the ordinary. It tasted good though! That is, if you were stuck in the desert somewhere, with nothing to eat, and suddenly this "pie" drops out of the sky, you'd probably be grateful. I haven't got the recipie - but an inside source confirmed that 15 eggs and 2 cans of fish went into the production of the pie - pretty impressive, to say the least. "I tripled the recipie", John told me.

So, all up then, both of the pies were very nice. Last time I looked, there was none of Lyd's pie left, and one slice of John's slice-pie left. I should add, though, that I did see an only barely nibbled piece of Lyd's pie getting thrown out after lunch...

by Andy