Recently, I received an email from one of my readers saying that she had secured a finalist position for a recipe contest she entered via my blog. At first, I thought it was spam, since the email subject header screamed in capital letters, “Jen, what have you gotten me into?” Though I typically delete emails I suspect are questionable, curiosity got the best of me, and I opened it.
After she expressed her complete shock about receiving this honor, she shared her understandable terror of having to cook in front of not just a few people, but actual judges. She desired my “coaching,” but I think I may have failed her. I claimed the No. 1 cheerleader role, but I didn’t offer quality and strategic coaching besides just, “share your story.” Admittedly, live cooking as a competition is not my forte.
Last week, I told you about the new “Kitchen Cookoff” competition that will be featured on MSN and Delish beginning in November. While I am not a contestant, a front row seat calls my name as I write one post each month about this head-to-head competition sponsored by Hillshire Farm.
Each episode features two contestants pitting recipes against each other. A unique aspect that excites me includes not just learning the nuts and bolts of each recipe, but hearing the contestants’ stories and traditions behind those recipes.
You all know how I love incorporating traditions into meal time. I can’t wait to get up close and personal with the ins and outs of how this reality cooking competition plays out. I’m going to be learning right along with you, and I can’t wait to take you on this journey with me. One thing I do know is that if any of you need recipe coaching next year at this time, I just might be your lady to call.
How would you react if you had to cook in front of a live audience?
Can you engage in conversation and cook at the same time, or are you one who needs to concentrate while you prepare a meal?
(I admit, as comfortable as I am on camera, the conversation would not be a problem. But I get a nervous tummy just thinking of cooking in front of an audience.)
Stay tuned for my continued 31 Days post on entrepreneurship. My apologies for postponing it.
I’d love the chance to try! But I am definitely not as chatty and full of personality as some. Blessings!
Yikes! I didn’t mean to scream! I am so sorry that I wasn’t able to keep you up to date with our cook-off adventure Jen – both of our computers were dead and we are just now back online and limping along until we can purchase a new computer! I tried to e-mail from the hotel, but our schedule was quite jam packed and using the hotel’s computer was less than ideal.
I must admit that it was quite an amazing experience to be a cook-off finalist in No Ordinary Burger Contest! We really enjoyed our trip (I took our 14 year old darling girl) and we both had so much fun! My recipe didn’t win, but we were given lots of wonderful gifts and even consolation prizes. Lots of unexpected blessings.
I am the type of gal who either hides in the kitchen or holds up the wall at parties, so it was such a huge stretch for me to be up front talking about my recipe in front of strangers and cooking in front of so many cameras on the HUGE Big Taste Grill! I was terribly nervous but determined that I would just do my best and enjoy the experience – and I did! The hardest part of the whole experience was getting up at 5 am to start the food prep and grilling outside in the cold darkness of the WalMart headquarters parking lot in the early morning! We could hardly see what we were doing, and I could barely think for being so cold and nervous!
The funniest part of this is that our children have caught the ‘contest bug’ and want me to enter every recipe contest they find online! I am not so sure … but I do know that I’ve learned a lot and wouldn’t be quite so scared another time! As in everything, we saw God’s provision and care in giving me the courage, strength and relatively good health to travel to the contest, to participate and then to get on home! It was a blessing and quite a memorable experience for my sweet daughter and I!
@Heather,
Here’s my recipe if you’d like to give it a try!
http://www.johnsonville.com/recipes/mr/midwest-summer-memories.html
Oh, you didn’t “scream.” It was completely for effect. 🙂 SO thrilled to hear how things went. Trust me, I was going to do another update post. This was just a teaser.:)