Over the course of the next few days specific people I know may be interested in this will be getting invites. As some of you know, my latest hobby is cooking. I have this tendency to take a hobby and go off the deep end with it, so as a result, I've been cooking whenever I get free time, and reading cookbooks and food magazines non-stop.
This thought occurred to me while making bruschetta for a poker night I had at my place earlier in the month. We need to have a NYC Top Chef amongst our friends. Obviously.
Here is the thought, between 4 and 8 chefs amongst our friends compete, but we don't do this in the standard Top Chef style. We get a panel of 3 judges or so, that everyone can agree on, and each chef holds a dinner party. Budgets are capped, but time is not. We all attend one every two weeks. At the end of the cycle we choose a winner, and that person gets ....something.
There is a lot of room for detail to be fleshed out in this competition. Originally, I was thinking that each chef could bring a judge of there own and judges equalled the number of contestants, but that doesn't scale (7 contestants would mean 14 people to cook for?). If we choose three judges and all the chefs attend then we are still looking at a sizeable dinner party. Alternately, we could all just grade each other, but that isn't all that objective.
Here are the original 'rules' I was thinking of' but all are open to discussion.
1) We choose a budget, all chefs need to provide receipts showing they stayed within that budget.
2) Certain ingredients are 'free', and don't need to be counted towards overall cost. Salt, pepper, etc.
3) There are no time limits on when a chef can start preparing, but dinner starts at a preset time, and no delays accepted.
4) Chef's can invite additional people to their own dinner party, but budget does not increase accordingly.
5) Chef decides on number of courses.
I want to have a preliminary meeting of interested parties to discuss details of the organization and rules on Sat. Oct 10th. Ideally, we can start the dinner parties by Late October/Early November.
Think of that special dish you've been wanting to show off. Think of being the star chef of a formal dinner party. Does this sound like fun to you? If you feel you have really taken your culinary skill to the next level, but aren't quite pro yet, chime in in the comments if you want to be a chef in this.
--Sam
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