Pizza Competition

I'M BACK!

Tis been a year, and this blog is veritably gathering dust!
But now that I'm at the Culinary Institute of America, there is so much to blog about! I will commence a weekly newsblast, about goodness-knows-what-I-guess-we'll-just-find-out-eh?

For starters, today there was a pizza competition!




Announced over a month ago, many students have been practicing their recipes for the Sunday where they'll be churning out around 20 pizzas to feed the sampling multitudes! There were 6 contestant teams, each with an individual recipe, and a different marketing approach, it was so neat!
The grand prize is a $1000 scholarship, so everyone's best foot is forward in this!
All the tasting students vote for one group each, and democracy crowns the victor!

When you entered into Farquharson Hall (the CIA's grand eating hall), there was Italian bistro music going in the background, accordion and all. The usual tables were cleared away to have lots of very tall bistro tables with the red checkered cloths!
Bistros are you know, those little restaurants beside the roads with the little round tables outside?

When you entered, to have your appetite going, there were fruit and cheese upon

Behold the wheels of aged goodness! (Namely the Gorgonzola!)




Now, to pizza!
The first team were going a Paris Bistro style.



Their pizza was delicious, definitely the most sweet due to the summer vegetables, and they drizzled it with some flavoured oil mixture just before serving, so it was quite a juicy little bite!
Before even tasting theirs, I was very inclined to vote for them because of their beautiful thematic framing of their little stage.
And no, not just because they had my Remi on their menu!



The next group, Napoli, had a margarita sauce on a thin crust with fresh basil and a little mozzarella. Their sauce was the most outstanding of them all, and won them constant comments (not the tea) from my friends whenever I asked them which was their favourite of those tasted so far. (None of us tasted them in order, just go wherever the lines are shortest!)

Group 3 were the Italians. Very vivacious and laughing, with whoever hadn't grown a moustache was wearing a fake one. They had collages of photos of famous people through time with moustaches, and that was their team name too.
They had a pizza similar to Napoli, but their crust was phenomenal. They had pizza-dough-making down flat. And that matters a lot with pizza, the crust more than the topping for many people.

The 4th group had deep dish pizza, little tart-shaped pizzas and some big ones they sliced up. I found them too bready and in the filling there was too much sausage to tomato sauce, so that made it feel even drier to chew.

The 5th group, with whom I had previously watched make try-outs two weeks before,
had the same delicious pizza I remembered sampling at midnight a fortnight ago.
Very complicated topping, with homemade spicy Italian sausage, a delicious sauce, spicy pesto, with shaved parmiggiano-reggiano on top. If that's not enough, they then put little dollops of ricotta mixed with mint and honey here and there to freshen the palate. Scrumptious is the perfect word.



I know, wow! Imagine having a good bit more to go round! So much pizza everywhere here! And when the competition was over, these blokes still had another four going through the oven!



Yum.

The last one went Pacific I believe, because they were dressed hula-hula style.

They had an artechoke and pancetta (an Italian cured bacon) pizza, with a bechamel (a thick white) sauce and provolone on top. It was a very rich pizza, I must say, quite a wholesome mouthful!

When it came to voting, I had to go for my friends. It was stiff for me between them and the Ratatouille (because of their delicious topping and great ambiance!)
But I went for Group 5.

When it came to the end, guess who the winners were?
The Italians!
Not only did they receive first place ($1000), but they received an award for best presentation and attitude ($250) and another People's Choice award! ($300)
It was truly a sunny day for them!
Ratatouille came in second, and my friends received third place, ($250). But they were happy about it, it was their first go at a competition, and they left with a good bit!

And then Ratatouille received special recognition for their professionalism and their demeanour well respresenting the college. So bravo for them!



Oh, and just before the judgings, there was a pizza dough working competition. Three groups of two students gave a shot at who could roll out the best pizza dough in three minutes with their bare hands!
It was fun to watch!


And then everyone dissipated gradually to do their homework for Monday.

Don't forget some cheese and grapes on the way out, though!