But. I'd entered the contest.
Begrudgingly, I dragged myself to the market, did the shopping, came home, and executed a decent test run to make sure I recalled how to do it.
Indeed, as I remembered, this recipe is two solid hours of work, apologies to my family. Dang. But, it came out really good, even though we didn't eat until 8:30pm. I didn't make the topping the way the recipe called for because I wanted to make sure I had all of the crumbled bleu cheese and celery greens for the "real" version for the competition. Satisfied with the recipe and my memory of it, I began to get a renewed enthusiasm for participation. After 2 hefty bowls of goodness, downed with a Lone Oak General Sherman DIPA from the fridge, once again I looked forward to the following morning.
I got up at 8:30am, started boiling the water for the macaroni noodles. One near hiccup was that I noticed was I didn't have a another can of panko like I thought I did, and I'd used a full one the night before. So I opted to just to use regular bread crumbs rather than run to the market.... As I was working with the chicken, I recalled that panko sticks better to the chicken after you pan fry it. With regular bread crumbs, the coating falls right off when you start to mix everything together in the pan. Recalling that, I executed a plan. I had to be really careful, I gently layered mac & cheese in the tins, added the chicken, and then put more mac & cheese on top, pressing gently and organizing the mixture so the chicken would stay intact as intended without losing the coating. sigh.
While making the roux for the cheese sauce, it wasn't getting thick enough for my liking. It was as if it was fighting with me. The night before it was wonderful. But here, pressed for time, it just didn't want to cooperate.
I didn't want to get into that classic battle of "add more flour, oh no you added too much now add more fat, oh no, now..."which happens every time I make gravy, so I have capitulated in the past and learned my lesson. Now I just get gravy in a jar. But this was different.
Eventually, time and heat solved the problem and everything came together, but I was sweating it there for a bit, like I'd have to start over and we didn't have a great deal of time. I tasted the sauce, it wasn't cheesy enough for my liking, the way Friday night's version was. Okay - throw more Frank's Red Hot in there, and make it spicier I guess. And oh, here's some unexpected Mexican Cheddar mix in the fridge. Add another 6 ounces of cheese in and let's call it. Still doesn't taste cheesy enough but we're at the starting gate, and I am panicking. We need to go. WE NEED TO GO!
Way to go Chowdaheadz! Happy to represent beer, Boston, and my Irishness in one t-shirt.
We arrived at the brewery at 11:45 because I thought we had to be there at for setup and start at noon.
But the Yoga portion of things started at noon, the mac and cheese competition was at 1. Huh.
Note to self: It helps if you re-read the instructions sent to you earlier in the week before just deciding what time you think you should be there.
Anywhoo as we say in our house, on time is late. So we were there early. I met fellow competitor Amy, she made the same mistake I made and thought that she needed to be there for 12pm start. We had a great chat, and were feeling very excited about participating.
We were emailed our positions that morning, and I was #12, out of #17. Happily went to my spot, and started to set up. Thought of "TB12" Tom Brady and laughed that maybe 12 would be a lucky number. Or. Numbah. Maybe.
I brought my lightboard to set up in front of my chafing dish, discovering in the car that the batteries were dead (and I didn't check them before leaving, naturally). But it was daytime, and it looked good nonetheless so there was no stress there.
I realized I had not brought my serving spoon on accident, but entry #10 had a ton extra, and tape so putting my ingredients list sign out was secured. Thank you #10!
Entry #11 arrived, and he had also made Buffalo Chicken Mac & Cheese.
Huh.
Now. Some people may have panicked realizing that they were next to someone who made the same thing, like showing up to the prom in the same dress as someone else.
But we compared our ingredients, and figured it would be nice to stay side by side and not cause a fuss asking to be separated. In fact, this was super cool the more we thought about it. I edited my lightboard to include him, and started referring to our stations, as Doug called us, the Buffalo Chicken District.
His name is Donnie, and he drove all the way from Rhode Island to participate. I thought to myself, damn son. What? You really are into Mac and Cheese cook offs!
Turns out he's good friends/former roommates with one of the guys who works at True Respite, Alec (or Alek, if he spells it that way) and had been invited to come and participate and spend the weekend.
How fun is that? Considering the night before I was ready to just withdraw and cancel, here's a guy who just drove from basically my parents' house to be part of this. I felt like a jerk a little bit and was happy he was there.
The girl on my other side, Grace #13, was also friends with the same guy from the brewery, so it was like I was in the middle of people becoming friends. We decided to sample each other's recipes, Grace's was super creamy and Donnie had ranch dressing in his and you could taste it just right. And I just wanted to pick the chicken out of mine and eat it all. It was so good.
Before the competition got fully underway, I went over to the Tap Trailer and bought a Rainbow Connection from partner brewery Saints Row, pictured here.
With my little taste of my own mac & cheese, this was a nice companion beer.
A hazy IPA with a lot of flavor, even by the picture you can see it has almost a creamy consistency. How perfect.
The beer description on the webpage says it has a "soft, pillowy mouthfeel" and it sure does.
Let's start the competition. It's 1pm! People are lined up! Let's get our mac and cheese on! Yay!
Things were a little weird at first because they started the line at the top by station #1, where people picked up their tasting sporks, and then they just stopped at the first few stations to get their samples. A couple people down the row from us were fussing hard that no one was going to make it down to us, and they were all going to get full up by entry 7 or so....
That was not the case. We did not lack for an audience.
We were filling our sample cups as fast as we could at some points. I wanted to keep 6 at a time out. People asked Donnie and me if we knew each other, or knew that we were both making buffalo chicken, and we confessed to neither. People tasted both of ours at the same time and did some fun comparison, "oh this one is creamy but the chicken over here..."
On to another beer, another Hazy IPA but this time the Week Away IPA from True Respite, pictured here.
I liked it a little better than the Rainbow Connection, and joked with Doug that I'd like a week away.
It didn't have the same creamy-ish consistency but did have bit more flavor. Kind of nice to have the two back to back for consideration.
As you can see from the shot here, I'd already gone through one my trays, and it was only 1:30. I was wondering if I was over serving for my samples, so Grace and Donnie and I filled our cups and compared. Nope. We were putting the same amount in. Were people just taking a lot more of mine? Is this a good thing or a bad thing! I was kind of freaking out inside that I'd be out of food in no time.
I'd contemplated bringing a third tin since I had the batch from the night before's sample run, but I then realized it was far better to be on the same quantity and level playing field with the other presenters. That is fair.
Here's Donnie serving up next to me, and only a small amount of the crowd of people coming in for tastes. The next half hour was a blur of answering questions about the mac & cheese ingredients, and welcoming people to the Buffalo Chicken District.
A few people came back for seconds and winked at me.
Doug came over to visit with the Mac Daddy (2021) specifically brewed in collaboration with Saints Row for the contest that day. And let me tell you, it would be a killer hot & spicy combo with either Donnie's or my offering. It had a peppery scent and taste, but unlike other pepper beers we'd had in the past in our lives, this did not hurt our faces.
Definitely a niche beer for those who like something smoky, spicy, and different! A nice offering!
I ran out of mac and cheese and cleaned up my station. It was only 1:50. Donnie and Grace still had most of their second trays, so I played hype man for them, like a dope. I hope I was funny.
I went over to the beer truck and got a Bright Spot IPA. Bright Spot being the name of the brewery, and IPA just simply the name of the beer.
It didn't have a specific name other than IPA so I found that funny, but I was intrigued. I didn't know what Bright Spot was, but had seen them on the menu board inside, with T-shirts for sale at the merch wall. (I really like the logo).
It was a very nice, simple IPA. Refreshing.
I sat in my folding chair and rested up a little bit chatting with contestant #10. I'm glad I brought two folding chairs out, which we keep in the back of the Jeep. She was happy to hang and chat with me as we watched the contestants who still had product get their food into faces.
At about 2:15 everyone was pretty much out of their wares.
I felt bad for anyone who was going to roll up on the scene at 3 expecting to get a taste! I thought for sure we'd have food to offer up to 3pm. This was impressive.
I think the long and short of it is people really wanted something to do, and were pandemic weary, masked up, ready to be out, and enjoy the day with perfect weather in an event outside. And it was a beautiful day. Such a beautiful day. I sat and enjoyed my beer and watched Donnie and Grace chatting without me in the middle.
After a break, I helped gather trays and chafing racks, and put out sternos. It is a lot of work setting things up on these kinds of events, there's a lot to cleaning up. I'm the kind of person who if you invite me to a party at your house, I'm there for set up and break down. I do your dishes. I bus tables at events.
So I did my best to assist.
I joined Doug, Geoff, and the Phineas Dog under the tent to relax and wait for the winner announcement. We listened to Kate Virginia sing and play, and had a couple more beers.
Here is Scrum & Hooker, English Brown Ale, which I got on draft instead of cask.
A very nice nutty brown ale. Feet up and watching time for the adoptable dogs.
Sadly, our dog is not a dog-dog, he doesn't get along with other dogs so it was kind of depressing because I'd love to get a second dog. We couldn't mingle him with others, and I eyeballed a couple puppies that would have been fun to bring home but I know that will never work.
Oh Phineas. I wish you were nice.
A double red rye, very flavorful. Beautiful lace and so nice to just kick back with after a run of IPAs.
What was nice for this entire experience was all of the beers I had were low/normal ABVs. None of them knocked me off my feet and onto my ass. But as an active "work-day" kind of thing, I had two beers more than I probably would have had if I was just sitting on my butt drinking beer.
Doug and I spent some time chatting with a couple who (I think) are very connected with the brewery, even though we did not get their names, and I can't find their info through the internet. He said that the Tap Trailer has just about paid for itself in the several weeks they've had it. Which is awesome.
Having the opportunity to ask, I got the story of Bright Spot beer. As a kind of a separate brand, they came as a result of the purchase of another brewery when "Covid Happened." This article from DC Beer explains it all wonderfully.
And keeping in mind how things happen with lawsuits and trademarks, I thought about what recently happened with our other favorites at 7 Locks with "Surrender. " Under this new label, True Respite can offer and distribute craft beer options (the aforementioned IPA and a Lager) at a lower price point, so people can get that better beer experience than say a 30 pack of PBR.
I told him how I work with a software company out of Virginia with the same name. He cocked his head and said "they don't brew beer, so they?" Nope. I had a good laugh and now I want a Bright Spot beer shirt so I can wear it to work on conference calls with our CMS vendor.
I stood with Donnie and Grace as they announced the winners, the three of us were not contenders. Sadly. But I think we won at having the most fun yesterday.
Someone came late to the tasting party!
And they sure do look like they need some mac & cheese!
I regret not connecting with Donnie and Grace on social media in person, but all told, I'm thinking of how much fun I had, and I hope they did too.
We came home with me tired, happy, and a gift card to come back to the brewery again and get some more. You bet that's a winning day.
Thanks to Bailey and Brendan O'Leary for throwing this great, and very fun, event. Thank you for working to make a community space for not just beer but for yoga and meetups and other social offerings.
We're true fans of True Respite.
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