Beringer Great Steak Challenge

Yesterday I competed as a Regional Finalist is the Beringer Great Steak Challenge and came in third place.

What a wonderful event. I've not had such a good time cooking in my life. The folks at Beringer are top notch, professional and treated the 10 of as as if we were royalty. Which I guess we were for a couple of hours or so. And the other contestants were so enjoyable with everyone pulling for one another. Very nice.

We started with a welcome reception at the Capital Grille in Seattle on Friday night. We were each given gift bags which included a beautiful boxed stainless steel carving set. We were housed at the W Hotel a few blocks away.

The following morning, we went by shuttle to the Bite of Seattle to a large tented area for the Beringer event. Wine aplenty, a crowd of hundreds milling about, and 5 beautiful new Gas Barbeque's arranged in a semi-circle.

Everything we needed was supplied to us in individual containers at the beginning of the 30 minute competition, for which there were two groups of five each. Music blaring in the background, a professional emcee roaming, questioning, and filming of our cooking efforts every step of the way.

Four judges, two of whom were Paula Deen's son's, Jamie and Bobby.

And away we went.

Thank you Beringer for such a quality event. I'm definitely entering again next year. And this time, I'm gonna win it.

And, best of all, my youngest son, Nate, came up to attend, cheer me on, and take photographs!