ciao hounds! let's bowl over this super bowl party...

so there i was - faced with a super bowl party and a need for a dish to impress, i put on my thinking cap and came up with a pretty obvious choice - GUMBO! a team from new orleans is playing - heck, what else do you make??? we had the prerequisite chips, queso dip, wings, hummous, pita, bagel chips, beer, beer and more beer (the new belgium ranger ipa made its debut), but needed something thicker, richer, spicier and cajun to soak that beer up.

so i pulled out my emeril recipe book and made up some of his "kick butt gumbo" and decided to kick it up a bit myself. first, i made roux. wow. i had never made roux before - i had no idea how this was going to go. i followed e's directions to "constantly stir" until it became a dark chocolate brown roux. this was about a 30 minute process. for those of you who have not made roux before - it is simply flour and oil heated over medium heat and stirred. apparently there are different colored rouxs you make for different types of food, but the darker roux you need, the longer you need to stir - which gets pretty tiring when you're making roux for gumbo feeding 16! but i have to say, as i was stirring, i started considering roux - where was it originated? who made it the first time? were there times when all people had to eat was roux? and i found myself slipping into this daydream about being in new orleans at the turn of the century, stirring up a huge vat of roux in the heat and humidity of the south. there was something deeply spiritual and, well, stirring, as i watched this flour oil mixture transform into the base for my gumbo.

it called for pork butt, andouille sausage, and tasso ham. i could only find one package of the andouille, so i picked up some chorizo links (after consulting w/my cooking guru jamie imus) which i boiled up then sliced up. i also wanted to have some seafood to go along with the pork products and got a couple pounds of cocktail shrimp. mmmmmmtasty.

as the gumbo cooked, the house filled up with the smell of the roux, the peppers, the cayenne, garlic, onions, etc. it was amazing.

needless to say the final result was amazing. i ate enough of it to counteract the five ipas i drank that day, and i feel, to help the saints on to victory. WHO DAT?!!

ciao hounds! UNITE!

there i was... twittering what i was cooking and eating and drinking and i figured - what the heck. i eat, i drink, i write, i cook and i am (for the most part) unemployed - i should get into the twitter/blogosphere and express what is going on with me culinarily and otherwise... so here's the inaugural JEFFEATDRINK blog post... ciao hounds, LET'S EAT!

this past weekend i did something i didn't think i'd ever do. i went to a casting call for a reality t.v. show. fox is putting on a show called master chef where they take untrained, amateur chefs and put them through a series of exercises and the winner gets a cookbook deal or something. oh and its going to be run by gordon ramsay (master eff-bomb himself). anyhew, we were required to prepare a dish, bring it down, plate it, have it tasted by judges, and maybe, just maybe, you could get yourself a golden ticket!

so i himmed and hawed all week stressed about what i should or shouldn't make. there was no way the food would be hot - even warm when i plated it, so it had to be something that would cool down well and maintain freshness, flavor and still look good (five or six hours after preparation). i thought about pasta, meats, fish - about every possible combination, then on friday afternoon i just figured my carne asada recipe is as good as any i've tasted, so i'll make up a carne asada taco. and, while i'm at it, why not do one using pork and another with scallops - kind of a trifecta of interesting taco flavors. i'd use regular salsa on the carne asada, a sweet & sour (mango) on the pork loin, then go with fully asian flavors on the scallops. but at the grocery store, they had some awesome looking ahi, and the scallop plan got waylayed.

i got home, got the carne asada marinating, the pork marinating, then mixed up the wasabi crust for the tuna. i started putting together the shiitake/ginger/wasabi - i'm calling it a pico de gallo, because remoulade doesn't sound taco-ish enough. one taste of the shiitake/ginger pico de gallo and i decided, while those other flavors (carne asada/pork loin) were good, this was going to blow them both out of the water.

so, i grilled the ahi, seared it to perfection. the wasabi crust was there, but not overpowering. i packed everything up (with the patient help of my wife) and drove on down to the denver culinary institute where the casting call was taking place. when i arrived, the line was pretty long, and three hours and twenty minutes later, i was in the door, sticking name tag #100 onto my chest.

myself and five others were led into a large kitchen with five or six stainless steel tables in the middle of the room - each table was split into thirds, and we were given a third of the table to put together our plate of food. i pulled out all my neatly organized ingredients - the tuna, corn tortillas, spinach, avocado, cilantro, lime wedges, thinly sliced carrots (couldn't find diakon), and laid it all out on the table. i finished it up and raised my hand.

over came the judge - who said he was the director of the culinary institute here in denver. he tasted it and said it was really good. gave me a few pointers on plating and presentation and was on his way. he did say he really liked the asian flavors and commended me for it (and gave me 5/5 points for flavor - in fact i got 5/5 on all the scoring points except for presentation). one of the casting directors came over, interviewed me a bit while looking over my application and i was told if they wanted to consider me further, they'd call me after their meeting that night. and that was it. i drove home wondering what if anything i could have done differently, realizing that i was most likely not getting a call back (what i found out from another person is that she got there right before they closed the doors, liked her foods - she got 5/5's on all but one - but she got taken in for the on camera interview, etc., and is going to be considered once the national casting calls are finished). if nothing else, it inspired me to come up with something new, fresh and awesome...who knows where that will take me?!

ciao hounds-unite and take over!

until next time... this has been jeffeatdrink