Kid's Top Chef

There are a few people in my house, yours truly included, who are Bravo reality show junkies. It all started with Project Runway, which, if you haven’t seen it, is an amazing show. It’s more about the creative process than scripted reality sound bites, although I will admit that they edit the bejeezus out of it. When PR ended we sort of segued into Top Chef, mostly out of curiosity, but also because we missed the ongoing conversations about who did go home and who should have gone home and who was plain old brilliant and who was smoking crack that week. And while Top Chef isn’t Project Runway, it did make us keep watching. It’s also about the creative process, just in the kitchen instead of on a sewing machine.

One week an odd thing happened. Surfer Dude picked up one of my cooking magazines and asked if he could plan a meal for the family. Are you kidding me? Be my guest. So he did. This was his menu – Meatless Chili Mac (a macaroni and bean stovetop dish), Italian green beans and a dessert that I have to admit I can’t remember, but I think was a cinnamon pumpkin cake. We made that cake a lot last fall. He made a shopping list for me and then, with my help, prepared the entire meal himself. It was fabulous, everyone heaped praise on his sweet little head and all of a sudden we had a chef in the making living in our very own house. Life was about to get interesting.

Over Spring Break the idea came up to do a Kid’s Top Chef. For those unfamiliar with the show the contestants are given a specific challenge, a budget and a time limit to come up with a finished dish. Then they are judged on taste, creativity and presentation. One person wins and one person goes home. The last person standing at the end of the season is the Top Chef. Two of my friends, Laurie and Stacey, thought it would be fun to get our combined eight kids together and do a little competition of our own. Surfer Dude and Gumby were beside themselves at the idea, so the planning began.

Come back tomorrow and see what happened…