The First Annual Cobalt Chef Challenge was held Friday April 26, 2002.

The basic idea was to invite all our friends and family, ask them to each bring mystery ingredients, and Mike (a.k.a. the Cobalt Chef) would whip together edibles. You can see the original "press release" (.doc) if you want see more details and the rules.

We had a packed house and guests brought everything from basic chicken fillet strips and raddishes to lotus root and five-year-old raisins preserved in grappa. Then there was the very weird stuff. Top of that list was definitely the preserved coconut which when translated was "Gelatinous Mutant Coconut" (mmmmmm. Mutant Coconut.). Also in that list were lotus nuts (looked like hazelnuts, tasted like bark with the consistency of a pebble), canned dace (a fish with a "shelf life: three years"), and chicken skins (just skins -- and they came late so weren't cooked on the night in question).

Mike did pretty well using the many ingredients and served up lamb kebobs with roasted rosemary potatoes, steak and mushrooms, chicken with mushroom cream sauce, rice with quail eggs steamed in lotus leaves, spicy sausage burritos, spanikopita, and a fruit galette for dessert.

The whole ordeal was caught on tape and the next morning, Mike sat down over breakfast to review the three and a half hours of videotape (angled to capture the workspace -- counter and stovetop), complete with plenty of ribbing from the guests. Ted came in loud and clear in his best Iron Chef impression yelling, "Marks for presentation going waaay down!" as Mike was hastily dishing out a tray of burritos; and at one point Vic asked, "Where are the cats?"

In the end there were a few remnants... the dace and sardines stayed in their cans, the lemon grass and bitter melon went unused, and there was some asparagus, some garlic shoots, some fruit and some mutant coconut left over. The lotus nuts were tasted and hastily spit out by several, though the crab crackers, wasabi crackers and corn chips disappeared.

Will there be a Second Annual Cobalt Chef Challenge? The jury is still out. But maybe with a couple of Cobalt sous-chefs and a little more elbow room it could happen.

Still wondering about the mutant coconut? I found the answer at www.coconut-info.com: Macapuno is a Philippine variety of the coconut palm that does not contain water inside the coconut shell. The "meat" of the coconut is a soft jelly-like substance that is used in popular Filipino sweets In other words, instead of having coconut meat and coconut milk, there is just jellied goo inside -- I'd have to agree that's a bit mutant. Luckily it's also pretty tasty.