Thoughts on recipes, contests and mystery ingredients
That's it folks, the 2015 Cook of the Week Challenge is now a matter of history.
I hope readers have enjoyed following the weekly matchups or a favorite cook.
It was a hectic, colorful, creative 12 weeks in print and many months of activity behind the scenes.
As this was my first year at the helm but my fifth as a member of the team putting together a record of the event for our print and digital products, I thought I would reflect on some of what I've learned:
Teamwork: If you get the chance to work with a team of professional, fun, talented and creative people who do the bulk of the work putting together such a project as the Cook of the Week Challenge — like I did — do it. You'll learn a lot and you might learn something about yourself, too.
Recipes: Reading recipes can be daunting, and timing is everything. If I start early, say after I've eaten breakfast, I can concentrate and do my job in silence. If it's getting on in the day and I'm editing recipes, I find that I talk about the ingredients aloud. My co-workers groan or ignore me, mostly. But, then I read out the title of a recipe, go on and on about the oooey, gooey ingredients and wonder, aloud again, “Wouldn't that just melt in your mouth?” Well, it can be hard to hear right before lunch and especially when you've brought cottage cheese and carrot sticks to eat at your desk. I do apologize to my co-workers for subjecting them to such agony. It's the contestants' fault really. I've been bowled-over impressed by the creativity of our contestant cooks. Each challenge produced recipes worth trying yourself. Please let me know if you give any a try. I'd love to hear about the results.
‘That's fierce': I think that's a phase made tweet-worthy by a contestant on a reality TV show, but it also sums up this year's competition succinctly. What started out as matchups between cooks who had been featured in the weekly Cook of the Week column with readers who wanted to pit their skills against them, the annual challenge has evolved into a straight-on Sweet 16-style bracket contest. But a heads-up: This is a serious endeavor with a focused and serious group of cooks. And after all the chaos, I'm glad our contestants still love to cook.
For a sparkling live cook-off finale: I can see this as an utterance from the oracle: “For a successful event, get yourself a star emcee.” We did that. Chef Paul Guerrero, culinary director at the Cooking Skills Academy in Itasca, was born for the limelight. He's an engaging, knowledgeable chef — and fun, too.
Mystery of the mystery ingredients: So, who picks what's going into the mystery baskets, you ask? Everyone seems to want to know. Someone once asked me if a few of us at the paper sat in a room drawing crazy ingredients out of a hat.
No, we here at the Daily Herald have no interest whatsoever in torturing cooks — except perhaps for that one year Twizzlers made it into a mystery box. The idea is to pair ingredients that almost everyone might have at home — just not at the same time, maybe. Moonshine and mackerel, canned salmon and peanut butter, pork tenderloin and chocolate. It's all an exercise in stretching creativity.
Next year: It's never too early to start thinking of a recipe of your own you might use to apply for a spot in COWC 2016. All cooks are welcome. Who knows, that just might be you on the cover next year.
• Contact Food Editor Susan Stark at sstark@dailyherald.com or (847) 427-4586. Be her friend on Facebook.com/Susan Stark Dailyherald or follow her on Twitter.