I quite famously can’t cook.  I live off a diet of kebabs, pizza and going around my mum’s place to see how she is just as she happens to be preparing dinner.  Occasionally I’ll cook something, this normally resolves itself down to ‘pierce film in several places and microwave on full power for 5 minutes’.

So I was extremely surprised to be asked to join the Food 2.0 Nomnomnom event where I would be expected to cook something in order to be judged by rather clever food critics.  I suspect that Mex and Walid were pulling my leg, either that or I’d annoyed them in some way and this was their revenge.

Thankfully I wouldn’t be on my own, I was teamed up with someone who not only knew which end of a knife to hold, but could also pronounce the names of some of the ingredients that we would be using.

Samantha Sigler is one of the reviewers on Trusted Places.com and had apparently been briefed on what I’m like.   And still she turned up…

We had already decided on a menu via email,

Mango-Radicchio Caprese With Basil Vinaigrette

Roast Chicken Breasts With Garbanzo Beans, Tomatoes, And Paprika

Ricotta Fritters

We were given some time to roam around central London looking for ingredients, this was sweaty work as I was carrying half a ton of AV equipment on my back, also Samantha is… energetic.  I felt like the cameraman in ‘Treasure Hunt’ charging around trying to get a decent shot.  I failed in this as well.

Apparently none of the shops were stocking the all important radicchio, needed for our starter.  I still have little idea what radicchio is despite having it explained to me on several occasions like a daft schoolchild.

Substitutions made (radicchio becoming some sort of posh celery) we made our way back to the Cookery school where we and other bloggers would create the source of the great food poisoning outbreak of 2008 our masterpieces.

The head of the Cookery school gave us the rules, mostly about washing our hands – something I am a professional expert on given that I like not having remnants of drunk person under my fingernails.

We then set about cooking.

Now, this bit is a bit of a blur – I know that I washed some vegetable looking things, then mixed some things in a bowl.  I also remember nervously measuring some things out, which would have gone quicker if I weren’t so worried about putting the wrong thing in the bowl.

Other teams would see our efforts and try to distract us, such as one team’s Machiavellian masterstroke of whipping their cream so much that it turned into buttermilk causing me to lose several minutes of time sniggering at the expression on the face of one of the cooking trainers.

I’m sure it would have gone smoother if I could have even pronounced the names of some of the ingredients.  (Although Sam, when you read this, I believe that Basil is pronounced ‘ba-sill’, not ‘bey-zil’…)

Thankfully Samantha took me in hand and we generated three courses of food.  The starter was… interesting in that while it looked nice it tasted somewhat like a celery stalk with a slug on it.  The chicken thing (as I came to call it) was rather nice, although by the time the judges got it all the heat had gone out of it and it turned into a stodgy mess.  The desert, which are apparently called Ricotta fritters were a complete success.  I have no idea what they were supposed to taste like, but they tasted like doughnuts, which makes it a success in my eyes.

Unsurprisingly enough we didn’t win the competition, but it was fun taking part.  That’s what my lawyer says I should say until I manage to sue Walid for ‘emotional distress’.

What is important is that it was run in concert with Action For Hunger, a very worthwhile charity.

That and I won something in the charity raffle.

Blogpost written by Reynolds as this is pretty much all he brought to the team.

Note from Mex - just to clarify that the tasting is only one part of the competition and although Tom & Sam did not win the tasting part you can still vote for them as best online experience which carries the lion's share of the points for the competition. Thank you!