The Takedown

Entrant list is FULL! WAIT LIST IS CLOSED! Buy tickets to come on down and see what the 30 cooks got up their sleeves!!! And email me to get on the mailing list – so you never miss another Takedown call for cooks!

Red Alert! Cookie Takedown! THE ULTIMATE HOLIDAY FOOD PARTY! Remember being little – and eating cookies till you maybe didn’t feel so good? Remember not regretting that? Any cookie welcome: ginger, choco bomb, blue cheese and bacon – the Cookie Takedown has seen it all, dudes. We’ll be serving free spiked eggnog, too.  December 20th at the Bell House! 6:30PM! Come on down and eat all the cookies you can for a mere $10! 

Buy tickets HERE! 

NOTE: cookies, as I understand them, are baked in an oven!

JUDGES: Gabriella Gershenson from TONY and Renato Poliafito from Baked in Red Hook !

Prize Sponsor:

Check out the Hot Chocolate Crawl, starting at 3PM, that will end at the Cookie Takedown!

Thanks to all the brilliant cooks who came to Great Scott yesterday, lined up at their Takedown Stations,  and proceeded to dump gallons of steaming Mac and Cheeze into the mouths of hungry Bostonians. It was a thing  to behold.  Great Scott was bursting at the seams with happy eaters.

I knew I was smart to take the TD on the road- Boston people had just the right amount of awesome tude- they certainly know how to eat and drink. The day went swimmingly- and I’m bummed it’s over!

Here’s the winners-judges and The People were pretty much in accordance about who was awesomest:

Judges (Sarah Pike and JJ Gonson) Choice:

#1 Jenn Foisy (station 15)
#2 Archana Joshi (station 1) Poblano Jalapeno Mac and Cheeze
#3 Jeff Sullivan (station 11)

People’s Choice
#1 Archana Joshi (station 1) Poblano Jalapeno Mac and Cheeze
#2 Jenny Liu (station 7) The Asian Invasion- check out blog and recipe!
#3 Jenn Foisy  (station 15) –

Thanks again Boston!!! I’ll be back with more and extra hellfire!!!

Taylor and Harry of the Brooklyn Kitchen have done it once again, and asserted themselves as the nicest and coolest cookware people there possibly is. They are friends with the takedown, and they mean to prove it, by donating amazing prizes to the Brooklyn Chili Takedown! Contestants might possibly win a Dutch Oven, perfect for your next chili brew,   or maybe a gift certificate to the Meat Hook – their new partnership project with celeb butcher and good guy Tom Mylan!  I went to their friends and family party – and got to see the new space for myself – and let me tell you- it is super peachy! Get poised for them to open doors this weekend!

One would think a brilliant school like Yale would have a lick of integrity! Or the mental skillz to develop their own awesome ideas.  This place produces some of America’s brightest students, and houses the brainiest faculty in the Ivies! Or not!

Apparently, without a nod to the Takedown, they are devising a suspiciously-named “Chili Throwdown” on their campus. Watch and weep! I’m apathetic, but I’ll let your outrage take over! Now get out on those streets and burn this university place to the ground!

https://light.its.yale.edu/messages/attachments/w3_47677_Chili_Throwdown_Flyer_2009a.pdf

Coming soon, the Recipe Page here at the Takedown will feature all the recipes from your favorite Takedown chefs! In the meantime, I’ll randomly throw these up in the blog!

Here, in Noah B’s own words – is his recipe for his Lamb Negi Mak – which makes zero sense till you see it and love on it.

pic by djwerdna

Continue reading →

Chow.com, in association with Chowhound, has deemed it necessary to give Matt Timms the Coolest Guy Award, for most coolest guy!!! Alongside the likes of Dogfish Brewery, Stumptown Coffee, and Thisiswhyyourefat.com – I seem to have made a sizable dent in the culinary landscape.  That drawing of me is probably not the most complimentary thing I’ve ever seen, but big woop – I have a new reason to brag about myself! Those of you who know me as a humble, selfless man ain’t gonna like the new Matt Timms. Vroom vroom!

Thanks Chow.com!!!

COMPETITOR LIST IS NOW CLOSED! You can still get on the waiting list if you so choose! People sometimes drop out, so competing is still a happy posibility!

COMPETITOR LIST IS NOW CLOSED! You can still get on the waiting list if you so choose!!!

There will be blood.  And chili! Oo!  November 22 at The Bell House – The BROOKLYN CHILI TAKEDOWN shall transpire. Mitten Prichard* hosts the takedown that started it all , 5 years ago in Brooklyn – and invites all the cooks in NYC to prostitute their best chili concoction. The masses will love you for it, because everybody loves chili. And even Texans admit, Brooklyn chili just so happens to be the best in the world… they said that yesterday, at a bar. They’d been drinkin’, but I’ll count it.

Judges will be: Rachel Wharton (Editor, Edible Brooklyn) and one of the butchers from Marlow and Daughters!

Competitors!  Check out the FAQ page to answer your most pressing questions!

November 22 at 4PM

Bell House
149 7th St
Brooklyn, NY 11215
(718) 643-6510

Nov 22

Tickets $15! Buy here!

With the proud support of  Brooklyn Kitchen and Meat Hook !!!

*first pet + first street – you know the deal…

Takedown ventures forth to greet the barbarian hordes of the Commonwealth… Bostonians! I come in peathe! And with a brilliant idea, check it out: you guys make a ton of Mac and Cheeze on November 15, and bring it down to Great Scott for a Takedown! Everyone is invited to come down and, for a mere $10,  eat all the entrants creations, think about it some, vote on the best one, everybody drinks a few, and that’s pretty much it! Simple!  Except for the part where, starting now, you’ll put your thinking caps on and think up your recipe. Kraft won’t cut it here.  If I know Boston cooks, I know they are up to no good – and will create some pretty sensational foodstuffs! Hit me back to enter!

BUY TICKETS HERE!

Nov15,  2:30PM at

Great Scott

1222 Commonwealth Ave
Allston, MA 02134
(617) 734-4502

Poster by art genius Matt Langland!

Prizes include a grand prize 6-month membership to the Mac of the Month Club, courtesy Good Tastes Kitchen, in Newburyport, MA!

Here you go, dudes, the winning Lamb Takedown recipe, and proof that The Takedown is a tool for social change! The people, they picked. They loved Jeff Allen and Diella Koberstein with a seriousness.  Jeff and Diel’s Uyghur Lamb recipe will transport you  to a better place, even as it highlights the plight of China’s Muslim minority!  These guys won People’s Choice with this so, full respect! Read on for the recipe!: Continue reading →

and you loved it! Visit Metromix for a the whole photo gallery!

and another up at Village Voice!

pic by Kelly Neal, Metromi

Thanks to all the contestants – I cry real tears (not really) when I think how incredibly cool you guys are for making all the brilliant recipes you did!!!

pic by Kelly Neal, Metromix

Pictures and recipes to follow!!! Some wanker stole my camera, so I am completely reliant on other people’s photos right now- so just you wait!

pic by Kelly Neal, Metromix

Here’s the winners in the meantime, just so you know!!!

We had some killer judges: Josh Ozersky (The Feedbag), Daniel Maurer (NY Magazine), and George Motz (NY Food Film Festival)

Judges:
1st Place: Aaron Ginsberg – Barbacoa Style Lamb Tacos w 3 Chile Salsa (wins $50!)
2nd Place: Kate Bryant – Pulled Lamb Shank with Pears
3rd Places: Jeff Allen and Diella Koberstein – Chinese Xi’an Spicy Cumin Lamb with Pickled Jalapenos

People’s Choice!
1st:  Jeff Allen and Diella Koberstein (win $100)
2nd: Bronwyn Flemming Jones – Wam Bam Thank You Lamb Tajine
3rd : Mark Bernal – Yang Rou Chuan (a Uyghur recipe!)

The Takedown and The American Lamb Board brought you this event- one for the history books… Thanks to Aaron, Chloe and Marlie for everything you did!!!