a brief digression on food

Considering that my first-ever personal blog was centered on food and cooking, I spend remarkably little time here on discussing food. So I give you a brief synopsis of one of the highlights of my weekend.

At the Durham Farmer's Market, they held the second annual Chef's Challenge, in which three local chefs were asked to create a dish based on a secret ingredient announced that morning. This year's secret ingredient? Squash. The contenders? Justin Rakes from Four Square, Billy Cotter from Toast, and Dave Alworth from Guglhupf.

Chef Rakes gave us some sort of shredded zucchini dish (I missed the first round), that was good, but seemed very incomplete, flavor-wise.

Chef Cotter prepared a puree of squash and red pepper, among other things, topped with little roulades of grilled zucchini squash stuffed with homemade ricotta, served with some sort of squash, tomato, and onion salad (I missed the description on this one, too, but it was an herby, vinegary little salad that was bright and tart). This, as with all of Billy Cotter's creations, was delicious. I have said before and will say again: that ricotta is a religious experience.

Chef Alworth presented a dish of squash and two-cheese (local goat and farmer's, I think) ravioli topped with "corn maque choux" (not sure why the "corn" epithet, since it's traditional), and I'm drawing a blank on what the sauce was.

Alworth gets major props for creating ravioli in 1.5 hours under an outdoor tent, and the entry was fantastic, but in the end, Billy Cotter took home the trophy. Having sampled all three, I understood why. The man sure knows how to play to an ingredient's strengths!

Judges Elizabeth Shestak of The Durham News, Lex Alexander of 3Cups fame (and former owner of Wellspring Grocery, which was bought out by Whole Foods in the late 1990s), and famous foodie Andrea Weigl of the N&O presided over the competition, with Frank Stasio of NPR fame acting as emcee.

All in all, another event that makes me love Durham. Congrats to Billy Cotter, and many thanks to all competing chefs.