Dutch Oven Cookoff

[Crane]

Fair warning... Though I'll not be in the chase fopr prizes, I did get the DO out and clean it up. It's ready to be fired up to cook Saturday afternoon. Who's in for the Cookoff?

[Roger]

x

[Richard]

Where? When? Buffalo?

[Crane]

Uh... Richard, you missed your big chance to compete in the Dutch Oven Cookoff LAST Saturday at Rendezvous... ROGER HEAD took home a brand new 12" DO as winner... followed so very closely by Mike Byrum and Kim Little, who tied for second place. Now, for a year, Kim gets to allow the "chump"... uh, "champ" to do all the DO cooking... except breakfasts, where she excelled!! It really was a hard-fought cookoff, and those who didn't participate were the only losers... (I cooked, and would certainly have been in the race for winner, but did not compete, since I organized the event this year.) "President Amos" presented himself at the judging table and insisted, by presidential fiat, that the rules required him to be tie-breaker (so he could dig in to the delicious entries)... luckily for him, he didn't get/have to vote!! I'm already looking forward to next year's DO Cookoff!!!

[KimL]

Um, Crane, you didn't say that it was just the three of us . . . . Anyway, it was a privilege to even tryto compete with my dear husband and Mike. And thank you for the prizes. I love my new red leather mitts. They are my favorite color, and they'll save my fingers when Roger "get-your-own-lid-lifter" Head makes his next appearance. (Yes, yes, he did let me use his lid lifter after all.)

Crane, I have a question about eating. I remember being told years ago at 'Vous that if you cooked, you got to try everyone else's food. Roger says no. It's part of why I'm entering, despite still being a novice! What's the story? Don't all cooks get a taste of the competition?!?

[Crane]

See what you get when you listen to the competition!! The "official" rule was as you believed... all judges, officials and participants get to sample the competition. Others get to sample per the participant's discretion. I figure that we are all "potlucking" and anything that gets sampled counts toward the cooker's obligation. Thus, there wasn't much left but sauce of my highly prized peach cobbler for the official potluck... Their loss for not coming by to root home their favorite!! Tell Roger he "officially" owes you a re-cook of his chicken-chili dish. It really was very good... but, don't telll him I said that. He's already intollerable!!

[Richard]

Well, I learned my lesson the hard way. I will be back with a simpler DO meal that can be cooked on charcoal in a reasonable amount of time. We live and learn. Some of us slower than others.