master chef, may edition

I’ve been wanting to tell you the story about my New Year’s Eve since New Year’s Eve.

16 cousins and significant others participate in some sort of [amazing] event together every year.  We call it Cousin Christmas and it typically involves some form of dress-up and loss of inhibitions.  And laughing.  Lots and lots of laughing.  We’ve got chemistry, what can I say?  Thanks to Macquelle and Brennan, 2011 was the year of:

I’ll let the (many) photos do most of the explaining.

The teams:

The judges:

prep:

the smallest competitor:

Plating (minus team 2’s):

Presentation:

(the winners)

The winning ingredients: syrup, rice, leeks & bread

To my team’s credit, we were working without a recipe with the ingredients: buttermilk, jicama, apples, and naan.  We did win in the “team cohesiveness” category. :)