Yeeee HAWWWW! Get PUMPED HOUSTON!!!! The Bacon Takedown rides into the hurricane!!! We’re heading to Houston, and looking for 20 Houston cooks to step forward and create 20 different bacon dishes. The good people of Houston will decide their worth, as they push hundreds of pounds of bacon down their happy gullets! 4PM, May 16th at Warehouse Live!!!
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Email Matt Timms to enter, Houston! I want to see what you got! free to enter the competition!! The first 20 people who enter will receive 15lbs of Black Label Hormel bacon to work with! Bacon candy, bacon cupcakes, bacon bread pudding!!! We’ve seen it all, because you can do anything with bacon- and its all better for it!!!
Prizes TBA (expect $$$ things like Wusthof Knives, Le Creuset cookware, etc – prizes are always generous and dope!)
Judges TBA – Houston chefs and foodwriters to judge…
Anyone can come down and for $15, try all the bacon dishes and vote on your favorite!!!! TICKETS AVAILABLE ONLINE – SOON…
This will be the best day of your life, and I’m including weddings, 21st birthdays, and that time you punched your boss!
The best. I’m serious, you guys. This thing was like… wow. Word of warning people- it’s a good idea to buy your tickets early. My events are starting to sell out online in Brooklyn! Yikes! Guess how big my ego is? Double that and you’ll be in the right ballpark! Throngs have happy carnivores devoured the 20 lamb inventions…
pic by Natash Ryan, Metromix
Hey and remember when I all bragged about TV on the Radio coming? Celeb hunters were jawdropping all over the place when Arthur Sulzberger, chairman of a little rag called the NEW YORK TIMES sauntered in… I only hope my celeb news-hounding doesn’t scare OTHER celebrities from coming to my parties! Hey celebrities!!! You are welcome!!! Come on down!!!
Thanks to all the brilliant cooks for all their hard work!! Thanks to the Bell House for being the best venue in NYC! And thanks to my very special judges Alan Sytsma (Food Network), Ben Mims (Saveur Magazine), and Kat Kinsman (CNN) for there smart-as-a-whip deductions!!!
Is it possible that the Mind Kitchen could get any cooler and more awesome? Actually, when your three guests are Melissa Sands (Fork This), Keavy Landreth (Kumquat Cupcakery), and Amber Marlow Blatt (Hey Brooklyn) – it’s not hard to look like a bad ass mega swamp bomb!!! MAN these guys made me SO COOL!!!
It’s always good to kick around some beers with good people and mull over 5 ingredients, till they BS me three impossible courses- and Heritage Radio Network is the dopest place to do just that!!! Thanks to Jack in the Booth for producing this thing, and supplying smartly placed echoes where they need to be. This show is maybe the coolest thus far…
Hope you notice the new logo for Mind Kitchen – I spent all day making it, and I really think it sums up the spirit of the Mind Kitchen: just as Crom‘s blade lies buried deep in the rooted earth, so must we excavate the brains of my contestants – and uncover a perfect 3 course meal!Get it??? Right??? I know!!
Oh and listen all the way to the end of this episode, because all three contestants snuck back into the studio to deliver Matt Timms an extra amuse-bouche of SMACK TALK! MANY OWCHIES DELIVERED!!
Music by Exodus, Iron Maiden, and Goatsnake.
Matt Timms (blown out) in the studio with Melissa, Keavy and Amber
And we’re back… The Lamb Takedown is BACK in NYC, 4PM April 18th at The Bell House!!!! Each contestant gets 15lbs of lamb- shoulder/shank/leg or ground to play with…
Truly the LAMB-orghini Countach Quartravore of all Takedowns… Yes! I just said that! Count on Emily Fleischaker from Bon Appetit to judge you sternly. So much lamb- the funnest meat there ever was!
...and check out the hevvvy lamb tee -available at the event for sale!
If you missed the Austin Bacon Takedown – check out the last post, and live viscerally through the fanpage photos (and add yourself) – and laugh and laugh with all the fun and true people that were there!
Addie Broyles from the Austin Statesman judged the bacon festivities, and documented the moment as well, in beautiful HD vids!!!!
Hilah, the grand prize winner and BBBacon sensation, coincidentally documented the moment. So lucky to have an exotic blonde with her own cooking show win first place – hey, The People spoke and they wanted Hilah. BAD!
Turns out, Austin Texas is the epicenter of all things fun. Not just because SXSW was destroying the convention center next door, but because the locals are maybe probably definitely the most funnest people. 22 Austiners showed their true colors that day: pink and red. Thank you to all the beautiful contestants for their hard work and wicked yummers bacon dishes!!!!!
The good people at Hormel gave each contestant 15lbs of Black Label Bacon to play with, and a chance to win a year’s supply of this fine-ass candy meat. And then guess what else? This dude in the audience named Doug won the raffle- for a whole year’s supply of bacon!!! GO DOUG!!! And Le Creuset was awesome enough to donate 5 griddles to give as insano prizes at this brilliant thang!
After the jump, check out all the contestants recipes, the winners, and our illustrious judges… Continue reading →
Boston was hit with a lambstorm at Middle East this past Sunday… the gods were much pleased with the arrival of 18 Lamb dishes- each entirely different from each other. Seemed cruel to award prizes, since every single dish was insanely good at the Boston Lamb Takedown, but whatevs.
We saw Meatballs, Shepherd’s Pie, and a brilliant perversion of the classic Rubin sandwich. Lamb was beered, braised, slow-cooked, and grilled. To call these cooks “amateur” would be a misstatement, so I won’t be doing that. These people are geniuseses, and I thank all 18 of them for working their booties off to feed the happy crowds!!!! CONTESTANTS! THANK YOU BIG TIME !!! WOAHZERS!!!
The judges were smart and cool. There was Adam Regusea, a producer from WBUR (NPR affiliate) in Boston! There was Charles Mokriski, the restaurant reviewer at Improper Bostonian! And Edie Clark, food writer for Yankee Magazine! Boston food heavyweights, all!!!
People’s Choice
1st – Aleks Strub: Lamb Bolognese with Rosemary Gnocchi
2nd – Justin Manjourides: 5-Spice Pulled Lamb with Pickled Fennel and Carrots
3rd – Matt O’Shea : Hammered Shanks- Cajun Spiced Lamb Shanks braised in Abita Turbodog with jambalaya.
Judge’s Selections
1st – Justin Manjourides: 5-Spice Pulled Lamb with Pickled Fennel and Carrots
2nd – Aleks Strub: Lammb Bolognese with Rosemary Gnocchi
3rd – Jamie Saltsman: Smoked Leg with hand-picked fruit compote
Judge’s Honorable Mentions:
Aaron Foster: Lamb Ruben
Alex Rosenzweig: Georgian Style Barbecue
And here below are all the awesome contestants, along with their brilliant creations- I’m filling in, as quick as I can, all the recipes: Continue reading →
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