Second place. Two years in a row.

I’ll take it. There was some incredible competition this year.

This was my recipe.

Queso a la Plancha del Diablo

Ingredients:
Something Natural Portuguese bread
olive oil
salt, pepper
tomato paste
chipotles in adobo sauce
agave nectar
Manchego cheese
Gruyere cheese
sharp cheddar cheese
parmesan cheese
milk
eggs, beaten
flour
cornmeal
tomatillos
red onions, sliced thin
cilantro

Process:
Cut the tomatillos a little less than a half inch slices, salt them, and put them in between paper towels to sit and dry out for about 15 minutes. Make the spread. 6 oz can of tomato paste, 3 tblsp of chopped chipotles, with some of the sauce, and 1 tbslp agave nectar, processed until smooth in the food processor. Dip the tomatillo slices into milk, into flour, into the egg, and then in to a mix of cornmeal, parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper. Fry them just until brown and crispy in about 1/4″ of peanut oil at medium heat. Set up to drain on paper. Pre-warm a cast iron skillet to a low-medium heat. Assemble the sandwich as such: olive oil on one side, and the tomato-pepper spread on the inside, place a piece oil-side down in the skillet; then working quickly, add a handful of the above cheeses (less the parmesan, grated and mixed), two slices of tomatillo, a few slivers of onions and chopped cilantro leaves, more cheese, then another piece of bread, similarly coated on the inside with the spread, and oiled on the outside. Cover (because it helps the cheese to melt more quickly) and cook until the bottom side is browned as you like. Carefully flip and do the same for the other side. Cut in half and serve with a sweet or bread-and-butter pickle.

Here are some pictures from today’s event:

Renee Bistany won the Wicked Fancy category, and People’s Choice with a grilled asiago cheese, with oven-roasted tomatoes, pancetta chips, & baby arugula on portuguese bread crusted with truffle butter, parmesan cheese and fresh rosemary. Served with a balsamic roasted-tomato soup for dipping! Yep. It was good.

The Winners:

Plain & Simple:
1: Dave Berry
2: Liliana Dugan

Wicked Fancy:
1: Renee Bistany
2:Greg Hinson
3:Dave Berry

Professional:
1: Neil Hudson
2: Barbara Gookin
3: Liliana Dugan

People’s Choice: Renee Bistany

Special Category: “Spirit Award”
Bob and Donna (Don’t have their last name yet)

I was at the Box Tuesday Night for Greg and Joy Margolis’ going away party. The place was full of little kids. I watched a kid dropped a cookie on the floor, bend down, pick it up and eat it. This was the floor of The Box! My first thought was, “yep, I’m sure no one has ever, ever thrown up right there in that very spot.”

Today, I found this online at the Serious Eats blog:

Earlier this year, food writer Michael Pollan asked his NYTimes readers to send in their food advice. These were his favorites:

“Don’t eat egg salad from a vending machine.” David Wilson

“Both of my parents were from Italy, and one of our family rules was that you could not leave the table until you had finished your fruit: ‘Non si puo lasciare la tavola fino che hao finito la frutta.’ It was a great way to incorporate fruit into our diets and also helped satiate our sweet tooths, keeping us away from less healthful sweets.” Marta Larusso

“You don’t get fat on food you pray over.” This is from a friend who points out that meals prepared at home, served at the table and given thanks for are more appreciated and more healthful than foods eaten on the run. Carol Jackson

From my Romanian grandmother: “Breakfast, you should eat alone. Lunch, you should eat with a friend. Dinner, you should give to an enemy.” Irina Dumitrescu

“Don’t eat anything that took more energy to ship than to grow.” Carrie Cizauskus

“Make and take your own lunch to work.” My father has always done this, and so have I. It saves money, and you know what you are eating. Hope Donovan Rider

“If you are not hungry enough to eat an apple, you are not hungry.” Emma Fogt

The Chinese have a saying: “Eat until you are seven-tenths full, and save the other three-tenths for hunger.” That way, food always tastes good, and you don’t eat too much. Nancy Ni

“Eat foods in inverse proportion to how much its lobby spends to push it.” Kirk Westphal

“I am living in Japan and following these simple rules in preparing each meal: GO HO — incorporate five different cooking methods (steamed rice, simmered vegetables, grilled tofu, sauteed vegetables, raw fish, etc.); GO SHIKI — incorporate five colors (red, white, black, green, yellow); GO MI — incorporate five flavors (sweet, sour, salty, spicy, bitter). While it might look like a lot of work, it is actually very easy and helps with menu planning and shopping.” Yukari Sakomoto

“Avoid snack foods with the ‘oh’ sound in their names: Doritos, Fritos, Cheetos, Tostitos, Hostess Ho Hos, etc.” Donna David

“One of my top rules from eating comes from economics. The law of diminishing marginal utility reminds me that each additional bite is generally less satisfying than the previous bite. This helps me slow down, savor the first bites, stop eating sooner. It also helps get plenty of variety in my diet, because this rule also makes a meal of small plates more enticing: 3 bites of 5 plates is better than 15 bites of 1 plate at maximizing satisfaction and nutritional variety.” Laura Kelley

“Don’t eat anything you aren’t willing to kill yourself.” Lorene Lavora

“No second helpings, no matter how scrumptious.” Karen Harmin

“When drinking tea, just drink tea.” I find this Zen teaching useful, given my inclination toward information absorption in the morning, wen I’m also trying to eat breakfast, get the dog out, start the fire and organize my day. I believe it’s so much better for our bodies when we are present to our food. Perhaps a bit of mindfulness goes a long way first thing in the morning. Of course, some time ago I came across a humorous anecdote about a hapless Zen student whose teacher taught him this aphorism and then was discovered by the same student, drinking tea and reading the paper. When confronted, the teacher said, “When drinking tea and reading the paper, just drink tea and read the paper!” Michelle Poirot

When you’re eating, don’t talk about other past meals, whether better or worse. Focus on what’s in front of you. Good meals are more thoroughly enjoyed this way, and lousy meals can yield their own useful information (”I’ll never cook that way again”). It’s also more polite, to food and cook alike. Miles P. Finley

After spending some time working with people with eating disorders, I came up with this rule: “Don’t create arbitrary rules for eating if their only purpose is to help you feel in control.” I try to eat healthfully, but if there’s a choice between eating ice cream and spending all day obsessing about eating ice cream, I’m going to eat the ice cream! Laura Usher

“It’s better to pay the grocer than the doctor,” was the saying my Italian grandmother would frequently use to remind us of the love and attention to detail that went into her cooking. John Forti

What is it about rainy days that makes us turn to comfort food? Amy and I woke up this am and both thought that it would be a great day for chili and cornbread. (Not to mention the grilled cheese and tomato soup lunch, and the fried egg “chicken on a raft” breakfast.)

Good time to share a couple of recipes.

We’ve tried dozens of chili recipes. But generally come back to this one, that Amy has perfected with time. I think it originated with the Cook’s Illustrated Best Recipes cookbook which, if you only have room for one cookbook, should be the one.

Beef and Beans Chili

2 T canola oil
2 medium onions, finely chopped
1 red pepper, seeded and finely chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup chili powder (choose the best quality you can find, such as this one)
1 T cumin powder
2 t ground coriander powder
1 t red pepper flakes
1 t ground oregano
1/2 t cayenne pepper
2 lbs ground beef (shoot for 85% lean)
2 cans (15-oz) dark kidney beans
1 can (28-oz) diced tomatoes
1 can (28-oz) tomato puree
salt

Heat the oil (at medium) in a Dutch oven and add the chopped vegetables and spices, stirring until the they’re soft and starting to brown. Increase the heat to medium-high and add half the beef and cook 3-4 minutes until just no longer pink. Then add the rest of the beef and do the same, breaking it up and cooking until just beyond pink.

Add the tomatoes, the puree, and the beans, and salt to pleasure, bringing the whole thing to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer covered for about an hour, stirring occasionally. Then do the same for another hour, with the cover off.

Plain and Simple Cornbread

4 T butter
1-1/2 cups medium-grind cornmeal
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1-1/2 t baking powder
1 t salt
1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1-1/4 cups milk

Heat a cast iron skillet (10″ would work best with these amounts), with the butter in it, in the oven to 375 deg. Meanwhile, stir together the dry ingredients. Mix the eggs into the milk. Combine the two, stirring only enough to wet all the ingredients. Once the oven is preheated, the butter will be melted. Pour the mix into the hot skillet and bake for 30 minutes, or until the top is browned and the sides have pulled away.

That’s it, though you can certainly fancy this up if you’d like. Over the years, we’ve added sour cream, creamed corn, fresh corn kernels, scallions, bacon, jalapenos, roasted red peppers, and more. You will just need to adjust the amount of liquid in the original recipe to accommodate the additions.

Paula Deen’s Deep Fried Butter Balls

Thursday, October 1st, was the beginning of recreational scallops season here in Nantucket. My reward for squeezing into 9-year-old waders (that leak) and using a pushrake that is in bad need of new netting, was a bushel of Nantucket Bay Scallops. If I made a list of reasons why it is worth living on this little elbow-shaped streak of sand, the sound of a rake full of spitting scallops, and the taste of them freshly, and quickly, sauteed in just a bit of garlic and olive oil would both make the top ten.

After cooking them Thursday and Friday as above, today I tried to do something a little different. Inspired by a wonderful meal last night at Corazon del Mar, I made a Thai-style Scallop Ceviche.

A ceviche is a Peruvian creation, but I decided to use classic Thai flavors like fish sauce, cilantro, and chili. I started with the juice of 5-6 limes and 2 lemons, just enough to cover about 12 oz of scallops in a small bowl. Stirring them around a little to make sure they were all coated. This then sat for an hour, covered, the acid of the citrus doing all the cooking that is necessary.

When the hour was just about up, I made the dressing. Started with the juice of 2 more limes and a lemon, I then added a dash of sugar and some Thai fish sauce, tasting it until the mixture was no longer too acidic. I probably added about 2 tblsp of the fish sauce, but I would imagine that what I consider too acidic might differ for you, so add it and taste it frequently until it tastes just right (it’s all about the umami). A little sea salt might also soften the acid. I took two Thai chilis and finely chopped them after removing the seeds; one English cucumber (the long skinny ones that are usually individually wrapped) and two shallots thinly sliced on the mandoline; and a small amount of rough-chopped cilantro.

Add the chilis and the shallots to the lime dressing. Stir well. It’s a nice touch, and only a little added heat, to add a whole chili (per serving) as well. Drain the scallops and discard the original citrus juice and add them and the cucumber slices to the dressing. Garnish with a little more cilantro.

I’m telling you, the Raynors have nothing on this! Wow.

Try it.

It’s just up the road, and I missed it.

The What the Fluff Festival, a celebration of Marshmallow Fluff in its birthplace of Somerville, Massachusetts, brings new meaning to WTF. On Saturday, Fluff enthusiasts piled into the town’s Union Square to listen to Fluff-themed poetry slams, sample Fluff-bearing foods, and play games like “Fluff, Knife, Bread” (a modified version of Rock, Paper, Scissors).

The tradition all started four years ago when the gooey white stuff was receiving some negative press. A bill was proposed to limit the number of times a week school cafeterias could serve the “unhealthy” Fluffernutters, a regional sandwich favorite combining the joys of Fluff with peanut butter. In response, Mimi Graney created an event to promote Fluff advocacy. This year’s showing was especially passionate since the Fluffernutter may soon become the state’s official sandwich.

I use a lot of sea salt. In fact, it’s been a long time since I bought a cylinder of regular table salt with the girl carrying the umbrella logo. I buy sea salt with a fancy French name, and I buy kosher salt. For this reason, I was a bit alarmed recently when I suddenly realized that most sea salt is not iodized. I don’t know why this never occurred to me before, but after the realization hit me, I did a bit of research, and what I found was worrying:

You see, iodine is a nutrient that’s essential for health. If your body is deficient in it, your thyroid can have problems functioning properly, which can result in depression, weight gain, and even mental problems. If pregnant women don’t get enough iodine, it can cause miscarriage or babies with low IQ or developmental disabilities.

Until the early 1900s, many people around the world were iodine deficient; this was the cause of the goiters (enlarged thyroid glands) that plagued members of previous generations. In the 20th century, most Western countries solved this problem by adding iodine to salt, which pretty much eliminated iodine deficiency in the developed world. (Though it’s still common in third-world countries without iodized salt—in 2006, The New York Times reported that iodizing salt would be the easiest way to raise the world’s IQ.)

Most brands of sea and kosher salt, however, do not have iodine added. There’s a common misperception that sea salt comes by the mineral naturally, due to the fact that sea water (and foods such as seaweed and fish) contains iodine. However, the information I turned up indicated that the amount of iodine in most sea salt is negligible—certainly not enough to supply the 150 micrograms needed daily by the average adult. And even iodine-rich foods don’t supply enough, unless you eat seaweed almost every day. On the other hand, a quarter-teaspoon of iodized table salt contains 115 micrograms, so if you eat that plus an iodine-rich food such as milk (iodine is added to most animal feed in the U.S.) you’re all set.

The salt issue is interesting because, like many people interested in healthy eating I think, I had just assumed that sea salt was healthier for me because it was less processed than table salt. It never occurred to me that I might be depriving my body of an essential nutrient by taking the “natural” route. And, without knowing it, I was also adding to the problem by choosing eggs from local animals that are probably not given iodine-enriched feed.

This also brings up a larger issue: How can those of us who try to eat a more “natural” diet be sure that we’re making the best choice for ourselves and our families? I’d be willing to bet that many of the same mothers who spend thousands of dollars on tutoring and “enrichment” toys for their children also buy sea salt and grass-fed milk. How would they feel if they thought their dietary choices during pregnancy might have lowered their children’s IQ’s by a few points?

One final thought: Some types of sea salt, including many from Greece and Italy, are iodized. (In fact, this is my new favorite.) But flaky Maldon salt from England and fleur de sel from France are not among them. So, if you’re worried about getting enough iodine and want to continue using sea salt, I’d be sure to check the label on your brand. And for more on the amounts of iodine in various foods, see this very comprehensive article from the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University.