Chefs and Sunburns

Thursday night was the long anticipated Nunes Iron Chef competition! We all knew Brian could cook, but what about Jon and Gabe? This was our chance to find out.

We gave each guy 7 pounds and then they could spend up to 5 pounds of their own on food, two hours to run to the grocery store and cook, and they had to incorporate a secret ingredient--apples. At 7:40 the food was presented to six taste-testers (one from each house). I was runner for the Flat 5 kitchen, which was assigned to Gabe. Basically, if he needed anything from any of the other flats, such as cooking wine or tongs, I ran and got it for him during the two hours that he was grocery shopping/cooking. Gabe made an incredible dish of chicken marsala with an apple/lemon flavor over fettuccine.

Meanwhile, Jon was working on a similar dish and Brian made a salmon dish with spinach, tomato, and apple. At 7:40 came the moment of truth. The food was brought before the taste-testers, who then scored each dish, and Jen, Charlotte, and Liz calculated the winner. Everyone came within three points of each other. In third place, with 42.3 repeating points was Brian, then came John with 44.2 points, and then Gabe, with 44.7 points (I think those decimals are correct). Gabe was Nunes Iron Chef 2008! Everyone's food was excellent though-- Brian's salmon was AMAZING, but some of the judges didn't like seafood, so he had taken a risk. Gabe's chicken marsala, the winner, was excellent. The flavor combinations in the marsala were great!!! I didn't really get to try Jon's, but everyone said that it was pretty great, too. So, Iron Chef 2008 was really fun, and everyone enjoyed themselves. We had a huge turn-out from the other houses, too. About 30 people were crammed into the common room to hear the winner announced.
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Yesterday was hiking in Dorset. I can't believe we've actually done it. We learned about the Dorset hike at the beginning of the semester-- it was the last 'event' of the semester for us to look forward to... I never really thought we'd get to May 9th. But we did, and yesterday we went hiking.

Dorset is a county on the southern coast of England, pretty much directly south from Somerset (where Bath is). There's a coastal hiking path around the cliffs of Dorset; the path starts in Cornwall, continues through Devon, and into Dorset-- it's one of the longest coastal hikes in the UK. We took a two-hour bus ride to Dorset, were dropped off at a little village church, then began our trek on the path. The coastal hike is along soil cliffs, which apparently have the chance of landsliding into the sea-- a few days ago 100 yards of coast went into the ocean about a hundred miles from where we were walking. We were told also not to go to close to the edge of the cliff because sometimes the ground stretched farther than the landmass to which it was connected, so though it may look like we were on ground it was quite possible we were standing on thin air, and could like Wiley Coyote go crashing down. Someone remarked: "Is it too late to turn back?"

But alas it was, so after the speech about how our hike was certain death, we hiked for 7 1/2 miles along the coast, through fields, through valleys, up huge hills and back down again... at one point we came to a hill with 204 steps up. I felt like I had run a mile once I reached the top, and last night the 63 stairs up to Flat 5 were NOTHING. The walk was gorgeous. When we were by the sea we could smell the saltwater and see all the way out nothing but blue ocean. At the end of the walk we came to a small pub called The Square and Compass where we got pasties and cold drinks (I got a coca cola) and relaxed in the outdoor seating. After we ate, we took the bus to the village of Corfe, where we could visit Corfe Castle and village. I opted to stay in the village part-- once you've seen one castle's ruins you've seen them all, I think. I got ice cream, then went to the Greyhound Inn with Cally, Ashley, and Galina.

We got Pimms! I'd never tried Pimms, and it's such an English drink I felt I needed to-- it was quite good. I'm not sure what it is, but apparently it's the official drink of punting, and everyone has told me to try it before I leave England, so I'm glad I did. We also got seasoned potato wedges, which made me want a swimming pool. For some reason I associate seasoned fries with the swimming pool. Overall, it was an excellent day, except upon returning home I realized my shoulders were badly sunburned and my legs weren't fairing too well either, mostly on the left side of my body for some reason. Oh well...

Overall, a fantastic day with ASE.