The Art of Eating In - Cathy Erway [131]
I eventually took off my apron and left the grill station to hang out with friends. Everyone was there—Karol, Matt, Maia, Scott. Well, almost everyone. Jordan was still away.
I managed to forget about the cut on my thumb for the rest of the night; the pain had mostly subsided after the finger condom went on, and I didn’t have to see the bloody mess that was the tip of my finger and its missing slice of nail for the rest of the night. But blood had welled up inside the rubber sheath, gluing it to my finger. I tried to peel it off my finger when I got home later, but when a new spurt of blood erupted, I quickly put it back on for the night. In the morning, I examined both my hands and found many more cuts, blisters, and burns than I could have imagined. They were with me for the rest of the week, tokens of the great undertaking my friends and I had managed.
At one point during the barbecue, Greg introduced me to his friend Josh. Josh was helping to organize another barbecue later that summer, hosted by New York magazine. There would be a cook off component to the event, and Greg thought I’d be a perfect judge. The next week, I got an e-mail from Josh to confirm my interest in serving as one of the judges of the cook-off. The event was called the Highbrow Barbecue, to be held at a waterfront venue in Manhattan and hosted by former Top Chef contestant C. J. Jacobson. This event was clearly not going to be an “underground” party or cook-off. It was also on the pricey side for attendees, at $25 a ticket for an all-you-can-eat barbecue meal prepared by the celebrity chef and a live musical performance by the band the Islands. From lowbrow to highbrow, I thought, shaking my head. Why not?
But before the Highbrow Barbecue came the next Chili Takedown. As promised, I was on the judging committee. Matt Timms and Scott had pulled together a very Brooklyn foodie-based group of judges. There would be Tom Mylan, a butcher for three restaurants in Brooklyn, and Camille Becerra, the chef-owner of the Brooklyn restaurant Paloma and another former Top Chef contestant. I had met Tom Mylan a few times before, but I was a little nervous about chatting with Camille. She was a first-time restaurant owner, after all; what would she make of my anti-eating out blog?
It was a rainy, muggy day in Brooklyn when I arrived at the bar where the Takedown was being held. The crowd of eager chili eaters was so large that they couldn’t fit inside the venue and spilled out into the crowded backyard patio. What’s more, the number of contestants blew away those who had taken part in any previous takedown. Whereas previous competitions had averaged maybe ten contestants, twenty-five amateur chefs had made chili for this one. Long tables with twenty-five homemade chilis lined two walls of the bar’s back room. The diversity among these chilis was overwhelming, too—there were some made with pulled pork, some with brisket, some with beer, tequila, and wine. I recognized several of the contestants from previous cook-offs, but from talking to some of the others, I learned that many were first-timers to the cook-off scene.
That it had become a bona fide “scene” by now was evident. When the other judges and I had finished our powwow and decided on a winner, we walked up to the bar’s stage. I looked out at the wriggling, clamoring audience below me. Everyone had eaten their fill of the free chili, and they were eager to hear the results. There must have been close to two hundred people packed into that bar, snapping flash photos or weaving their way to get closer to the stage. After introducing himself, Scott handed me the microphone.
“Uhh,” I said. “I’m Cathy, and I write a blog called ‘Not Eating Out in New York.’”
A cheer erupted from the crowd, probably from a handful of friends. I tried to think of what to say next. In the crowd that night, I’d run into several fellow food bloggers and writers whom I’d become friends with over time, and other acquaintances who were avid home cooks and foodies. I’d also