Nom Nom Nom 2012

 Nom Nom Nom is a masterchef style cook off for bloggers run by the Cookery School and social media expert Annie Mole for the last five years. It’s a charity event in aid of Action Against Hunger that takes place at Cookery School in Central London. 

This year sixteen foodies, working in pairs, took part of this fun competition. The brief was to shop for ingredients at the Marylebone Sunday farmers market and surrounding shops to make a three course Olympic menu. To cook different menus from around the Globe in two and a half hours.  The result was judged by a panel of food professionals for the “Expert Judges’ Choice”. In two weeks time, there will be  a public “Viewers’ Choice” vote for the bloggers who produce the best online record of their meals with prizes for the pair who get the most votes in. An online fundraising in support of Action Against Hunger with fantastic prizes.

Having decided not to take part of this years competition for many reasons, I asked Annie Mole if I could come along on the day to watch, take pictures (sorry they are not that good) and blog it about as an outsider. She agreed and I arrived as the teams were coming back from their shopping trip. Rosalind, the owner and founder of Cookery School, briefed the contestants on health, safety and schedule. Everyone took place at their stations and started cooking.  It was fascinating going around all stations and seeing how each team worked together within a brief and schedule. It was interesting to see some many colourful and exotic ingredients and smells, and very distinctive attitudes to cooking.

At the end of my first round I spotted Victoria, from Chorizo Chicas,  over the stove stirring her Crema Catalana. We had a quick chat and I asked who was her partner and to my amazement she was doing it by herself. I was told that, unfortunately, her cooking partner was stuck in Wales due to a last minute change in her work schedule.  I though it was very brave of her to go alone.  I asked if she wanted help with the general chopping, cleaning and assistant duties. She was a bit shy to begin with but it soon faded away and we got stuck into cooking. Two and half hours seems quite a lot of time to prep, cook and plate three dishes between two people but it’s actually just right. After lots of peeling, chopping and cleaning from my part and the real cooking being done by Victoria, the result was a simple, tasty and well seasoned Spanish three course menu. Chorizo Chica dishes won the first prize and the rest is history! I must say the other dishes were quite inspiring and it was brilliant to see new methods and techniques. Well done to everyone!

Rosalind Rathouse – Cookery School’s Principal and one of the judges briefing the competitors. A massive thanks to her first-class staff for all their help.

 

The teams and their dishes :

  Team The Chorizo Chicas = Victoria Glass and Dolly Alderton, who unfortunately couldn’t make it due to work commitments.  I helped Victoria as last minute sous chef instead.

 Leigh Koh and Guo Sun Lee = Team Singply Singsational 

 Urvashi Roe and Meena Bhana  = Team Gujerati Girls

Bex Williams and Linds Harrison = Team Team America   

American Deep South menu. Fourth place. I particularly liked the black eyed beans with smoked pork and sausage stew which was served with rice and cornbread.

Fiona Maclean and Adrian (who replaced Karen Burns Booth) = Team Gaelic Gals 

 

Selina Periampillai and Sumayya Jamil = Team  Mélange 

Kai Chan Vong and Jon Waddingham = Team  A Flickr of Hope 

Qin Xie and Mehrunnisa Yusuf = Team China Pak Co

An Oriental menu with tofu salad, a variety of wontons and tasty rice balls filled with peanuts for desert

Lunch plenty to choose from

The Judges

It was a day full of action with an unexpected twist! It was superb to see so much food passion in one kitchen.  Am I going to officially take part next year? That remains to be seen. In the meantime, don’t forget to vote for the team you want to win this year “Viewers’ Choice” category. For more info: Nom Nom Nom

For proper beautiful pictures: Tikki Chris
                                                Annie Mole
                                                Monica Shaw  
                                                Kai’s flickr