I'm fighting with Bobby Flay!

Hey there! You read it right! I'm in a fight with Bobby Flay! Add to that Cat Cora and Sara Moulton, but it's not a catty fight, it's a food fight :-). I already made a joke like this in my last post, but I totally wanted to recycle it. This Labor Day I headed out to Rutherford, NJ and took the fight to the streets! We are all teaming up with Aetna Healthcare for a food fight and you can get more details at HealthyFoodFight.com. Basically, we are challenging cooks around the country to make a healthy dish that tastes great. Each event is the semi finals and the last of course is the big one where someone takes home a nice cash prize and culinary gifts! I took some pics while I was there, but most of the day was filled with eating dishes from the contestants and chatting with all the local food people that stopped by to watch all the cooking drama! Here's the booth/kitchen where all the contestants prepared their dishes ...There were three rounds of cooking with new contestants each round. If you happen to join us to watch the food fight in a city near you, make sure you stop at these kiosks in the pic below ...If you step up to those and enter your information, you can win a complete set of cookware. I asked one of the event planners how many and he said that plenty were available at each event, so sign up!!! Ok so, here's the first round of contestants right before they started cooking ...
This next picture is of the winner of the round. I took this prior to even eating or voting, but something told me she would be at the top or close to it. They were cookies made with no butter, sugar, flour, or eggs. Just figs, dates, walnuts, bananas, apple sauce, oats and I'm sure I'm missing something, ahem along with her name. I know, bad reporting, but I think the food and the heat took about 20 IQ points from me that day teeheehee. Anyway, she was pleasant and her family was there to support her and the cookies were so good, I swiped one to eat on the ride home. It didn't make it far :-). Here she is proudly presenting her cookies ...
We had two other winners that day, but everything was great so I bet the scoring was pretty close. By the way, we judge on taste and presentation. Then the recipe is sent to the people at the Culinary Institutes of America and they test it and determine the nutritional value.That portion is 50% of the score. So it's a really rounded competition. We don't judge solo either, Aetna has the judging panel packed with food people galore! I met someone Monday, a fellow judge, I'd like you to meet ...
That's Rossella Rago, host of a web series called Cooking with Nonna. Turns out she is featured on an upcoming episode of 24 Hour Restaurant Battle with her mother! Check the webisodes, I really like them and they remind me of David Rocco's show on Cooking Channel. He had me captivated the second I turned the channel and he was taking direction from an Italian grandma while she kneaded a massive pile of dough into submission. "Nonna" means Grandma in Italian, so in each episode of Cooking with Nonna Rossella cooks with a different Italian grandmother and it's not just cooking, there are old pictures, stories and at the end ... MANGIA! :-) I think she is working towards something, something good. So I support her, give her a look! Okay, that's it for today ... I went to Chip Shop in Brooklyn a few days ago and took a picture of one of my favorite desserts. The owner told me about a new show on the way that shot an episode there. Guess who the host is?? I can't tell, but I will say it's one of the finalists from the most recent season of NFNS! I bet I'm late on this and it's on the web somewhere, but I just wanted to let you know to inspire you ... it's not always about winning, sometimes it is truly about the journey and gaining all the experience you can. If you think you can do this, I say send in a tape to NFNS ... you never know! Although I can't tell you who is hosting the show ... I can show you one of my fave desserts ...A Fried Mars bar! Now, that's some food worth fightin' over! :-) Take care and hope you are enjoying your week! Excuse the typos ...I'm runnin' errands and posting at the same time...I'll fix 'em tonight after dinner.