Cook of the Year aims for Food Network challenge
Now that she's been crowned 2014 Cook of the Year, Jamie Andrade isn't letting the burners cool.
She's eagerly awaiting word from the Food Network where she applied for a slot in an upcoming competition for home cooks. If all goes well we'll have a chance to see more of Jamie's easygoing style and award-winning cooking in the future.
“I'm hoping that winning the Daily Herald's Cook of the Week Challenge will give me the last edge I need,” she said.
Jamie out-cooked three other challengers on Nov. 3 at the Hyatt Regency Schaumburg where she prepared Cornmeal-dusted Sturgeon with Sweet Potato, Pumpkin Puree and Whiskey Orange and Brown Sugar Sauce. Her approachable, sweet-heat combinations won over the judges and sent her home with a much-needed Bosch dishwasher, dinner for eight at a local restaurant and a cooking class party.
“I always put an element of heat in everything I cook,” says Jamie, who sprinkled chili powder and brown sugar into her vegetable purée.
Jamie's seat-of-the-pants style of cooking at home and the pressure of cooking dinner after work for her three famished children probably were good training for the one-hour Daily Herald cook-off.
“I never get an hour to cook dinner at home,” she said with a laugh.
Jamie and her husband, Jose Andrade, have entered family cook-offs for several years, too. Both their families — “there are literally 50 of us living in the Elk Grove Village area” — come together for an annual chili cook-off each September, which Jamie won three years ago.
“We're very serious about it,” she laughs. “We have a very intricate rating system based on balance, texture, taste and appearance with points for each category.”
Medals are awarded to the winner in each category and the overall champ takes home a trophy.
Jamie is a self-taught cook who honed her cooking skills while working as a waitress for eight years.
“On a slow day I would go back in the kitchen and start grabbing stuff and cooking,” she says. “I didn't want to eat the same stuff every day off the restaurant's menu.”
At home she and Jose, who worked as her sous chef during the Cook of the Week Challenge, spend Sundays prepping food for the week's meals. Their children are probably the only ones at school who bring mini pizzas with homemade crust and build-it-yourself tacos with shredded pork, sour cream and cheese.
“We don't eat out often,” she says. “Every night we have family meal and the kids have to take turns telling us the best part of their day and what happened at school. We sure don't want to sit around the table at some fast-food place.”
Once the children are in high school or college, Jamie and her brother and Jose may open their own restaurant. They're tossing around ideas for a casual country-western-southern spot with smoked pork, brisket and ribs at lunch and dinner and maybe a bar scene at night.
Who knows, by then Jamie may be a Food Network star. We'll let you know how that turns out.