Today at the VA Medical Center in Slisbury NC was the International Day Festival. This was a big get together of the employees and families and designed to show the wide range of cultural backgrounds represented.
The back story on this is that Ronda came home from work one day and said something to the effect of.....I hope you don tmind, but I signed you up for an event. The event was a cooking/food tasting deal where you submitted a dish based on your culture.
The judging in this deal was going to be on best meat or veggie dish and best cultural display.
So the plan was for me to make a dish and come up with some sort of display to go along with it. With that in mind, I took alot of the photos of the bayou that I had taken from an earlier trip this year and had them enlarged. I made a photo board along with some various facts on Louisian and Black Bayou. Included in the display was a cypress knee that Ronda and I have moved along with us for at least the past 15 years from flower bed to flower bed in several different states.
The menu was simple and the presentation even easier. Ronda loves my moms hot water cornbread. Now that I think about it, everyone loves my moms cornbread. This seems like a simple thing but truthfully you have to do it a few times to get it right. So with the cornbread in mind I figured I needed a main dish to go along with it and one that would fit my bayou theme. I decided on catfish stew. to be honest here, I dont think Ive ever had that before in my live but aftger a google of some good recipies I knew this was the one.
I used my campstove not only as prop , but as a working stove to have the food simmering during the entire event. With the stew simmering, the hot water cornbread served from a duth oven, cypress knee and photos I was off in the running in the first annual event.
I truly thought everyone involved was going to be prepared to feed not only judges but also the attendees. That wasnt the case with most and some only had enough for the judges. I made almost 2 gallons of stew starting at 6 AM this morning and when serving time came it went from something fun to something that closely resembled work. I had one package of 36 bowls and 2 packages of 24 bowls and when I unloaded there was only 6 bowls left so I served alot of stew of cornbread. Several came for seconds so I knew I had a shot at being CHAMP !
I dont want to sound bitter here but Im convinced stew and cornbread trumps yams any day of the week. But, the judges didnt see it that way. So I placed third overall in the food portion.
However, my cultural display won first place so I was pleased that I was awarded a trophy instead of having to choke someone out in order to get one.
Next year will be better - Im doing frog legs and pinto beans.....I wont be denied a clean sweep next time.
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