Another day, another cook-off

That’s right, another cook-off in our humble home. Something different, right?

Although a good cook-off may be a regular occurrence around these here parts, we have altered the terms with a slight global twist. Or quite literally a twist of the globe. Yes, I had another brilliant idea; we would close our eyes and spin the globe, placing our finger down on said globe to indicate the country we would be looking to for inspiration for a dish. One of a final three dishes that each team would be bringing to the table.

And the teams?

Well team Cootes would be made up of the stalwart of the local home cook-off scene, Jennee Cootes, and a ring in in the form of Jennee’s cousin, Sarah, who was passing through on her way from Sydney to Brisbane… and hella keen on a good feed. This girl was proper keen. Keen like the mustard. Keen like Geoffrey. Keen like some other really keen things.

Team Stockdale was looking a little lean on this day, and that is not purely because I have been steering away from the lusher side of eating. It was almost wholly due to the fact that I don’t have too many friends owing to my fascination with all things carnie… what can I say? I really enjoy rubbing myself down with a good fistful of the little suckers and because of this a lot of people say I smell offensive. Whatever general populous.

From lunchtime we were furiously prepping and cooking and we taunted each other as we went. “What does it look like?” I would say. “It looks like victory, doesn’t it?” or; “Smell that. Smells like success doesn’t it” and even; “Taste that. Tastes just like superiority doesn’t it?” They rebutted with some not so witty comments so I’ll do them a favour and leave it out… it’s the least I could do.

Win or lose, this was going to be a cook-off to remember…

Team Cootes went in hard and it became immediately obvious that Sarah had a clear advantage; she was “piss fit”*, and Jennee and I were not. The previous night she had sneakily enticed Jennee and I into a game of “drink every bit of booze we have in the house”. Cheeky little girl. So the next day, coming into the challenge, she was fine, I was a little shady and Jennee, well Jennee was an effing hilarious little story all of her very own. She was in a bad way. She was disheveled, simpled and allergic to the brightness of the sun all in one. I taunted her and asked her things that were clearly too hard for her to answer at the time; “Where are you going? What are you doing? What is your name?” It was all just too hard…

To the food!

Team Stockdale drew the following… and clearly not the previous
Oman and it’s lamb kabouli
Mexico and smoked beef short ribs, mole sauce, charred tomato salsa picante
Venezaula and braised capsicums with prawns

Team Cootes
Papua New Guinea and new age take on some local flavours with fried coconut custard, banana ice cream, popped black rice and tamarind caramel
Brazil and chicken empanadas with chimmichurri
Madagascar and a green papaya and pineapple salad… I know. Get fucked eh?

At the end of the day we had cooked our asses off (some did more drinking than cooking) and all created some damn fine dishes, everyone of them well and truly edible, but there could be only one winner… unfortunately for the good name of the competition, the children were either coerced or bribed into a selected opinion and the voting in general was clouded by controversy a la the Western Australian state elections, so we will be recalling all voters and conducting a recount and it will most likely be months before the results can be announced…

Sorry is all I can say.

Recipes will follow shortly…

*piss fit. We trained in the art of drinking alcoholic beverages. Able to consume a lot of booze without being totally trash-bagged