Staff Cook-Off

My school is big into bonding type activities among the staff. Which I quite like, especially when some competitiveness gets mixed in with the bonding- BONUS!

Example: Staff Cook-Off

There were three categories in which to compete:
1. Soup
2. Chili
3. Dessert
(anyone who didn't want to/couldn't cook was instructed to bring 'extras' aka chips, cheese, dip etc)

I'm usually in the 'extras' category at these types of events. I'm not gifted with being able to follow a recipe... all the different 'spoon' measuring references throw me off (table, tea... 1/2 a teaspoon, bleeh) and I get very frustrated when my end result looks nothing like the picture in the recipe book.

But I wanted to make a good impression. I'm basically on a 6 week interview with this long subbing job. Nobody wants to hire the teacher who just drops off a bag of Fritos. Not that there's anything wrong with Fritos; they're salty and curved slightly for maximum dip-holding... just nobody wants Fritos to run a classroom.

My mother happens to be an excellent cook. And she wants me to succeed of course. So she made my favorite soup for me.

To be fair, she was going to be making it anyway, all she had to do was double the batch so I could take some to the cook-off. I was also very careful not to lie at the actual cook-off. I never talked about me making it. I did totally rant about the yummy-ness of kale (a type of cabbage which is DELICIOUS and super good for you and everyone should go get some) in the soup so much that one teacher sitting at the table mused "I've never heard the word 'kale' so much in my life as I have in the last ten minutes." I'm going to go ahead and take that as a compliment.

The name of the soup is Zuppa Tuscana, and it has kale (yum yum), potato and potato skins, sausage, red pepper, onions, garlic, chicken broth, bacon and spices in it. You may have had it at Olive Garden haha. It was big hit at the cook-off. Lunches at my school start in 3rd period and run all the way through 6th. 3rd is my lunch period, so there wasn't much action yet obviously. 6th period is my conference period, so I went back to the teacher's lounge and this is what I found.

My soup had been dominated! Scraped all the way gone. I did notice that though the crock pot was clearly empty, no one thought to switch the heat off and so the remnants got crusted to the bottom. I then was that person who went around and switched all the heats off on the empty pots. Anyway, YAY my soup was all eaten! No better compliment than that. There were some chilis that sadly were still half full.

There were big poster boards in the lounge for people to vote for their favorite soups, chilis and deserts. You can only vote once in each category. I voted for myself for the soup (duh), chili I voted for my friend who asked me too (I'm not a big chili fan... I fear spicy so my vote was totally up for grabs to whoever asked first) and with dessert I voted for a friend's cake, but I was totally in love with these cream cheese oreo balls dipped in almond bark. Don't worry, the oreo balls won by a landslide, as they should have, they were like dessert crack.

As anyone who is on any level a close friend with me knows, I'm a bit of a cheater. Apples to Apples? If I'm playing in a big enough group, I definitely put in more than one red card to boost my odds. Scrabble? I google possible words on my phone under the table. Spades? Me and my partner have been known to peek at the other team's cards when they go to the bathroom.
But I would like to honestly say, I didn't cheat in any manner with the voting. I only voted ONCE for myself in the soup category. And that's what made the end result so ridiculous.

At the end of the day, an e-mail went out with the winners. The Soup Winner: Chicken Fajita.

What!?

First off, chicken fajita is not a soup, it's fajitas! Those go on a grill and get wrapped in tortillas. Not liquefied and simmered in a crock pot to win a cook off.

Oh well. Fair is fair, right?

Till I went down to the lounge after the final bell and saw the tallies.

I know it's a little (ok a lot) difficult to read. But in the middle you can make out my "Zuppa Tuscana" and then second from the bottom nicely circled is the winner, "Chicken Fajita."

Now, let me go ahead and tell you the tally results, since the bright pink poster board is assaulting your eyes.

Zuppa Tuscana: 16
Chicken Fajita: 17

ONE POINT! Ahhhhhh

If I had just smoozed some, talked a few people up for their votes- maybe I would have fared better. Or perhaps the chicken fajita entree was just one point more yummy than mine. At least I had 16 fans!

Or rather my mother did haha, congrats to her!