Results

Quite to my pleasant surprise, I had been forgotten from the team lists, so I occasionally helped out this one team by peeling some oranges and charring some corn.

Each team had a chef that came up with the recipes and directed us in what to do. Our chef, Dana, was very patient, and explained techniques to what was really a team of amateurs. One of the assistant chefs mentioned that in a lot of ways, working in this environment is more fun that working at an actual restaurant, where you don't really meet many people and spend most of your time making the same dishes over and over. The trade-off I guess is that each day you're teaching a bunch of drunk, obnoxious non-chefs how to cook.

My one main contribution was that one of the guys was making biscuits and as the chef urged him not to over-knead the dough, I mentioned gluten and she was impressed.

Thanks, Alton.

Oh, right, "my" team won (our stuff in that picture). Dana said it was her first win, and we were very happy for her. This really ticked off some of the other teams, especially those that had people who considered themselves "good".

We tasted everything and it was good and filling. The salmon and polenta was especially tasty.