Blog Posts by Blue Ribbon Hunter

Mosaic portrait artist Jason Mecier is most known for his creative celebrity portraits made from the celebrity's own trash, but he is always experimenting with new mediums. He has done a Martha Stewart portrait out of veggies, Rachel Ray made out of beans and noodles, and Rosie O'Donnell out of junk food. We met with him the other day for the reveal of his most recent food portrait: Kevin Bacon made out of bacon!

Kevin Bacon...made of baconWhen you look at it up close, it looks like a box filled with bacon, but take a step back and there he is! A perfect representation of Mr. Kevin Bacon. Jason used fifteen pounds of bacon to complete the piece. The lighter colored sections, such as the skin on Kevin Bacon's face, were made with raw, fatty pieces of bacon that were cut with scissors to the right shape. The background of the portrait was made with perfectly cooked bacon that all blends together to be a solid reddish-brown. The darker sections, such as his hair, pupils, and darker shadows around his face

There are not one but two reasons Allison is glad to be at the International Pickle Festival!The International Pickle Festival in Rosendale, NY is the largest pickle festival in the U.S. There you can find everything from bizarre pickle creations to your classic New York style sour dills. We were excited to attend this festival in particular because our lovely host, Allison Fishman Task, was craving them… because she is pregnant! And no, she's not just eating for two, but for three, so her and the twins were happy to get all the pickles she could eat.

We of course found the classic pickles such as bread and butters and dills, but we came across a lot of unique pickles as well. We found fried pickles, pickled pineapple, pickled okra, drinking vinegars, kimchi, and even chocolate covered pickles. To top it off, there was a pickle eating contest, and only people with very strong stomachs could handle that one.

If you don't already know, classic dill pickles are something that you can make pretty easily on your own at home. Here's how:

1. Take six pounds of pickling

Mac and CheeseThe beauty of Aspen during the fall is beyond compare. We were fortunate enough to stay at the beautiful Molly Gibson Lodge by the same owners of Hotel Aspen. We were right in the center of town, and just a short walk from Aspen's 2 nd Annual Mac and Cheese Festival. Some of Aspen's best chefs showed up to try to win the coveted golden noodle trophy. We saw everything from goldfish cracker-coated deep-fried mac and cheese, to mac and cheese with tater tots, to mac and cheese with a sauce made from Guinness beer! The winner of this festival was determined purely by people's choice, and the people chose:

Rustique's Mushroom Truffle Mac and Cheese

By Chef Tico Starr

Serves 4 people

*Oven set on broil only when ready to gratinee

1-2 cups sliced Crimini mushrooms

1 pound short pasta, cooked and cooled

1 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons Mornay sauce (Bechamel sauce with cheese added, in this case Gruyere)

2 teaspoons white truffle oil

1/2 cup Gruyere

The Award-Winner!Every year the World Cares Center puts on the Iron Skillet Cook-Off, where top chefs compete head-to-head against FDNY Firefighters to make the best dish. The World Cares Center is a non-profit organization founded after September 11, 2001 that helps train people to be ready and able to respond to disasters so that they can assist other people. Since it is in the firefighters' second nature to help the community, they don't often like to be praised for doing what they feel is their job, so the Iron Skillet Cook-Off is the World Cares Center's way to thank the firefighters while still letting them indulge in some friendly competition, and help the community at the same time.

The way the competition works is that the firefighters choose the dish they want to compete with, and then the pro chefs are only given the name of the firefighter's dish and have to create their own recipe from the name. The dishes were outstanding and it was hard to tell what was made by a pro chef, and

Punkin' Chunkin' is an annual three-day event that takes place in Bridgeville, Delaware where teams from all over the country go head-to-head to see who can launch a pumpkin the furthest using a homemade device such as a catapult, trebuchet, or air cannon. Although the "chunking" is what draws the crowds, there is also a great Punkin' Chunkin' cook-off held every year that is sure to make your mouth water. Contestants can compete in several different categories, but the recipe must include pumpkin. This year's winner was a Pumpkin Pulled Pork Barbecue dish.

Pumpkin BarbecuePumpkin Pork Barbecue

By Joanie Huston

1 large pork butt (shoulder cut)

1 large onion, sliced

2 quarts chicken broth

2 cups Ketchup

1 cup water

¼ cup brown sugar, packed

¼ cup maple syrup

¼ cup cider vinegar

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon cumin

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon cinnamon

½ cup pumpkin puree

1. Place pork

The New York City Wine and Food Festival hosts a ton of interesting food events each year, and one of the more popular events is Meatball Madness. At this event, top chefs compete to win the award for the best meatball. With judges like Giada De Laurentiis, Alex Guarnaschelli, Anne Burrell, and Geoffrey Zakarian, winning is no easy feat.

We walked around and chatted with a number of different NYC chefs who all shared their meatball tips and tricks with us. In the end, it came down to two classic meatball tips that every home cook should follow:

Don't over work the meatball! Our chefs told us that the biggest mistake a home cook can make is packing the meatball too tight in your hands, almost like a snowball. Rather, you want to hold and shape it with very soft, loose hands.

Be hands on! Don't be afraid to mix your ingredients into the ground meat with your hands. It is the best way to make sure everything is evenly distributed.

The winner was chef Gabe Thompson who was

Cranberries!The Ocean Spray commercials have been seen by people all across America, however many Americans have no idea why they feature two men standing in a lake filled with cranberries. That's why we headed to a man-made bog that was set up in New York City's Rockefeller Center to speak with a cranberry grower who could explain this strange phenomenon.

We learned that cranberries actually grow on vines close to the ground in a dry area. When they are ripe, the growers flood the bog, or the land where the cranberries are growing, until the water covers the berries. Then they take a machine through the fields that gently knocks the berries off of the vine, allowing the cranberries to float to the surface. Then they corral the berries into one area where they are pulled out of the water, sorted, and sent out.

Caramel and Almond Bark Covered Cranberries

When we asked cranberry grower, Heidi Slinkman, her favorite way to eat cranberries, she told us about this delicious and simple

Avocado FestivalEveryone loves a great guacamole, and lucky for us, it is pretty easy to make. But we wanted to know what it takes to make the best guacamole and there was no better place to travel than Carpinteria, California for their annual Avocado Festival. This festival is a weekend filled with everything and anything avocado from the World's largest vat of guacamole to their famous guacamole competition. A lot of contestants came out hoping to make their guac stand out amongst their competitors by having a unique or powerful ingredient such as chili peppers, bacon, cumin, or olives, but that only left the judges craving a solid, classic guacamole that showed off the delicious natural flavor of the avocado. In the end, the recipe that took home the blue ribbon was a simple and classic recipe that used perfect Hass avocados and it came from the same woman who won last year: Cherisse Kirkendall from Carpinteria.

Winning Guacamole Recipe

By Cherisse Kirkendall of Carpinteria, CA

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