April 11th
2005
Surfing the web, I stumbled across this. Which immediately brought back memories from two years ago. With that said…
Obtaining this life altering device wasn’t as easy as the title may suggest, I have to say. Of course we could have walked in a store and bought one. But our approach was more fun, at times stressful and foremost unexpected. I don’t necessarily like long-winded stories myself, so I’ll try to stick to the facts and the highlights of our first (and perhaps last) cooking contest.
While O. was gone to the US on a business trip, I decided to take part in a recipe/cooking contest (Cooking Cup), which was hosted by the publishers of the magazine Elle bistro. I submitted my favorite seafood recipe for the fun of it, not hearing back for weeks. Completely forgotten about it, out of the blue, I received a call and an invitation to the first round of the Cooking Cup contest.
This faced me with two challenges: For one, my <<favorite>> recipe didn’t – per se – exist at the time, it was more or less a combination of different dishes I thought would make a great contribution, based on the only fish I like without reservation – pike perch. Secondly I needed to get O. to buy in. So in a prep frenzy we made this dish first for ourselves, then for our neighbors. After the third time we felt confident that we could pull it off in front of a fierce jury.
The dish I came up with was lemon spiced pike perch on a wild rocket salad with pine nut dressing, accompanied by Mediterranean oven roasted vegetables.
Round 1 This first session was hosted at a local kitchen store in Munich, just 5 minutes walking distance from our apartment. Using their kitchens on display (the ones facing the street) every so often passer-by’s would stop and watch us cutting fish, grinding spices…etc. The atmosphere generally was pretty relaxed, except an isolated sign of aggression in the beginning, when one of the couples got upset because the host (the kitchen store supplied the food in the first round) couldn’t get exactly the kind of ingredients they needed for their dish. Bad strategy.
Disbelieving – we won this first round. The jury and the hosts were so very hospitable and contributed some cooking on their own – late hour pan cakes, accompanied by some bottles of champagne. What a combination ;)
Round 2 Different location, different jury and definitely more competitive. One of the new jury members, a professional and highly awarded chef, was a weird one. Throughout the cooking he made a face that would cause milk to become sour. Asking him questions, caused you to regret to have asked in the first place – why on earth did he take part in the jury, if he didn’t like what he was doing? The more surprised we were at the end, when it was he who complimented us on the dressing and the fish. With also winning this round, we couldn’t believe that the first price was a full blown KitchenAid – we even could decide on the color – yeah! (unfortunately we couldn’t get the fancy colors here in Germany, so we went with black). Funny side story: one of the other couples had an attorney in their team, who gave the jury a hard time, a really hard time. We all felt a little embarrassed, this was supposed to be pure fun – nothing more…
Round 3 Battle-field. This third round was fun as for the event itself, logistically a challenge. The three chefs (two decorated with stars) gave all participating six teams an exact schedule. Originally being second to present, we were asked to jump in and serve first, with the other team being way behind.
We managed to be on time in spite of the new schedule, however only half of the jury was present. What?! After they finally all appeared (where were they?), the food has become lukewarm. Of course, we didn’t win this time. But considering that we had zero expectations, we ended up being 4th place out of 200+ initially invited participants. All participants were rewarded with even more presents that night…
The hosts of all three rounds were very enthusiastic and supportive, so were the representatives of Elle bistro and the organizing agency. One could have argued about the chefs being a little more laid-back and accessible, since the entire event was a fun event to begin with.
Bottom line, even though it was great fun/experience at the time and seeing our picture in the magazine, we didn’t spend a second thought on doing it again. Preparing fine food for friends and family and people that share the same penchant for good cooking is wonderful, doing it competitively is a whole different story.
PS: The KitchenAid has become a full member of the family :)
Hi Nicky and Oliver - this is fantastic! I thought you were becoming professional chefs! Can I see your wonderful pike perch photo sometime...? You deserve the kitchenaid, Matthew got me one at Christmas last year and I've been using lots! Is Elle bistro the German edition of Elle a table? It looks good and I'd love to read it one day (even though I can't understand German...)
Hi there! I'm fairly new to the world of food blogs and I wanted to say delicious.days is my absolute favorite! I track it to make sure I can read updates as fast as possible :)
Congratulations for your prize, and what a story! I am part of the group that dreams about this famous Kitchen Aid but still hasn't got around to buy one yet... The day will come!
Hi Joana,
We did buy an extra food shredder. Unfortunately (as we probably could have predicted), we rarely use it, unless we have more people over and larger amounts of vegetables need to be processed (like 80 mini spring rolls for our annual potluck dinner :) The KichenAid itself we use at least once a week... more often than I would have predicted!
Dear Keiko,
Thanks! I do think, though, that we also were a little lucky and since we didn't kill ourselves over it, weren't as stressed out and nervous. Elle á table really does look like the french version of Elle bistro, or vice versa. :) But I'd prefer Delicious over Elle bistro, to be honest. 'Just read about your white KitchenAid and have to say, that I never considered this color - unjustifiably - it looks great with a bit of a "retro touch" :)
Hey Marie,
Well, first off let me say that your site looks very well designed. In light of this, thanks for your kind feedback :) Also, your Tables and Facts section I immediately bookmarked for future reference...
Congrats on the Kitchen Aid, once you go there, you'll never go back! And, of course, congrats on going so far in the competition - that's so cool! Love your site Nicky, found it through a comment you left at Santos' site, and will surely be coming back!
Wow, I wish my KitchenAid has a story as dramatic as yours. The only highlight in my KitchenAid story is deciding between the red or the yellow one : ) Love your blog!
My KitchenAid was a wedding present. I use it about once a week too. It's a great tool and it was a wonderful present.
But yours has a great story attached to it, that makes it even better.
Hi Nicky,
this is Stephan, one of the organizers of the agency that organizes the Cooking Cup! I am about to fill this year's web site for the Cooking Cup and by chance happened to find your visit of our site in our web logs which brought me to your web site. What a FABOLOUS web log, congratulations. Very very beautfilly made and very very great reading.
Your article on the Cooking Cup of two years ago brought back some memories for me, too. Yes, I definitively must agree on some of your critique - that was the first Cooking Cup ever and yes, some things and especially some people have been quite, well, let's say "special". I guess you know what I mean! ;-)
I am very happy you like your Kitchen Aid so much. Yes, it is a great machine and I wish I had one, too. I once bought the stand mixer from Kitchen Aid while being a student and still love it.
I have also read on your blog that Oliver loves to cook Asian and that his Indian Curry is his absolute favourite. Well, why don't you two give it another try this year? Our topic is Asian Cuisine. You'll find all details in the ELLE bistro that is on sale right now (Keiko, yes, Elle a table is the French version of ELLE bistro. There is even a Japanese edition on sale in Japan, but I am not really sure how this one is called). Also, all info on this year's Cooking Cup can be found on http://www.cooking-cup.de by the start of May. We would really really love to see you again and can promise that some of the weired things from two years ago have definitively been taken care of! :-)))
Hope to hear from you again,
Take care, Stephan
Hi Stephan,
Thanks for stopping by our blog and for catching up with us, it's truly been a while. This years theme sounds great and considering the broad spectrum of asian cuisine, the possibilities seem endless.
It'd be great to see you and the team again, let's see if we can come up with a worthy asian recipe :) Thanks for the invitation!
How odd that I found this while searching for for KitchenAid information. Either way, it was quite the interesting story. Sorry to hear you didn't win, but at least you've got the KitchenAid mixer.
Nice story. I like it because it's a great tool and wonderful.
I like kitchenaid. I have written about kitchenaid too. I think every one will be helped with a functional appliance like this.
I just got mine for Christmas, and I too, can see how it's going to be a family member!
Hi! I've been looking at that kitchenaid mixer for a while now (it's quite expensive, though) and just wanted to know if you have any accessories or just the standard mixer.
Everything you cook looks great, by the way!
Thanks and have a nice day!