Macaronis And Cheeses (It’s a small world after all)
I went to a taping of the Food Network Challenge’s Macaroni and Cheese competition yesterday. It wasn’t nearly as exciting as I had hoped, but I did get free copies of the recipes that the competitors used. Five competitors, making two dishes each, makes a grand total of ten types of Macaroni and Cheese which I will almost certainly never make. The first round was “traditional” mac and cheese, but the rules were absurdly broad (must use elbow macaroni, cheddar, and some type of milk or cream) and the judging criteria didn’t include any points for traditionalness. So, it wasn’t traditional in the traditional sense. Of course, the first cook in front of the judges had the most traditional dish, and had actually done quite a bit of research on historical variations. But, because she was first, the judges got out all their complaining about how it wasn’t what they thought of as traditional. They seemed to get the complaining out of their system with her, and didn’t particularly take issue with the vastly less traditional dishes of the other competitors.
I didn’t bother staying long enough to find out who won the ten grand, but I hope it was the one I just mentioned. The fact that she had actually done research on the subject of Mac and Cheese made the snooty judge terribly uncomfortable because he realised she could call him out if he was a bullshitter. He rambled at length about his “deep” knowledge of the subject to all the competitors who didn’t seem to have done any reading on the subject.
Anyhow, the most novel thing of the day was running into Zane from Mouth Off at the taping. By random coincidence, he and his mom just happened to sit right next to me. I heartily enjoyed making Zane terribly uncomfortable by talking about such things as my work on the Westminster Wife Show. (Read that blog antry if you aren’t familiar with the film…)
Then, the three of us moved, and we happened to sit next to Rick who used to run Oddville at the Avenue theatre. So, with Zane, Rick, and myself we had a whole section of people in shows on 17th street which are currently on a likely permanent hiatus.
Now that I have been doing more and more stuff, it amazes me how much I am running into people I already know. At the shoot for Intercourse, PA I ran into Kathryn Gould, who I had met a few weekends prior at a CASA meeting. Embarrassingly, I didn’t recognise her. I blame the amish dress. Being a minimally social sort of person, I’m just not accustomed to encountering people I know in unexpected contexts. It’s a brave, small, new world out there, I guess.
Mac and cheese show should air late summer, around the time of the Simpson’s Cake show, which is scheduled to come out right around the time of the movie.