Look Who's Cookin'!!!

Dave and I had a wonderful time showing off our abilities in the kitchen at the Look Who's Cookin' event that was put on to help raise money for the great organization, "hear ME now!" which promotes oral deaf education for children here in Maine. Thanks to Pam Dawson and the fabulous folks from "hear ME now!" for asking us to create a dish that we could present and serve to all of the patrons who attended the event. Almost $10,000 was raised at the event, and we were happy to be a part of it.

Not a day goes by when Dave and I DON'T talk about food at some point during our work hours. We both love to cook and will frequently talk about concoctions that we prepared for supper the night before and sometimes bring in samples for the other one to try. Our spouses are both willing and eager guinea pigs to our cooking whims. We have both been known to confidently bring a dish or an appetizer to any variety of family or work gatherings through the years, but when asked to whip up something for complete strangers, we were a little nervous, especially knowing we had to cook for 200 people. What if they didn't like what we created??! That is a lot of leftovers!! And we have very sensitive egos, don't you know.

We decided to prepare a gumbo dish that had chicken and kielbasa in it that we would call, "Gumbowumbodoodah." At the very least, if it didn't taste great, it certainly would have a name no one would forget. We fine-tuned our recipe and decided that we would each make our own big pots of the gumbo at our own homes, so we would be sure to have enough for everybody. That plan may have been a mistake. We both brought our pots of gumbo to the event, and when we took the covers off, we saw two different looking dishes. Oops!

Dave's is the dark one on the left. My gumbo is the light one on the right. We both followed the recipes perfectly, but Dave's had a tad more kick and his chicken was a little more shredded, while mine had a milder taste and chunkier chicken. Alright, maybe they BOTH look like something you might see the orphans in "Oliver Twist" or "Annie" eating, but trust me, they sure were tasty!! At least, several of the folks who tried it, told us, "That is the best thing I've had all night." We had several people vote for our dish, but alas, the Golden Apron was not to be...for us.

We had a great time mingling and trying out other people's tasty creations though. There were great chili dishes, fried raviolis, jumbalaya, meatballs and some great desserts too. The winning dish was a seafood chowder that was loaded with lobster, shrimp and scallops. You just can't go wrong with Maine seafood!!

So back to the drawing board we go! We have a whole year to experiment and test things out on our spouses again, and perhaps, we will perfect a dish worthy of a Golden Apron for next year!! At least we will have fun trying!