Hen House Holiday Celebration Roundup

Today, I attended the Hen House Holiday Celebration, which was this great food event put on by the Hen House Markets, a fixture amongst grocery stores in the Kansas City area.  I had a great time sampling various products I could then go and buy at Hen House.

Among the best things I tried:

• Palermo’s Breakfast Pizza (good for anyone who is looking for that all-too-critical heart attack)
• Palermo’s Three Meat Pizza
• Boar’s Head Ham in Brown Sugar and Mustard
• Edy’s Chocolate Ice Cream
• Louisberg Cider’s Apple Cider Slush

And really the list only goes on from there.

The highlight of the day, though, was the Inaugural (and hopefully First Annual) Hen House Local Chef Challenge pitting the emceeing skills of Chef Jasper Mirabile vs:

Chef Michael Smith of Restaurant Michael Smith and EVO
Chef Tate Roberts of EBT Restaurant
Chef Michael Foust of The Farmhouse Restaurant
Chef John McClure of Starkers Restaurant

In a fight to the death (well, culinarily speaking anyway) using Good Natured Family Farms ribeye, chicken, and a mystery bag of ingredients.  Each bag had some veggies, a grain, and a Wisconsin cheese.

The competition was fantastic with Chef Smith winning narrowly an amazingly smoky stuffed chicken leg served over pasta in a red sauce.  Going off my memory, the stuffing was a mixture of eggplant and cheese and I want to say some other vegetables as well.  What really set the sauce apart, though, was the smoky bacon he put in the sauce.  It permeated the entire dish and gave it a depth of flavor you don’t see in many chicken recipes.  Congrats chef, all that leaping off the stage to check the oven was worth it!

Other highlights of the day included sitting with Chef’s mama and brother (a.k.a the Doc as I’ve been instructed to call him).  Not only are they great people who kept bringing me food (the surest way to my heart in any situation), all I can say is that rank hath it’s privileges.  When chef’s mama got to try a bit of Chef Smith’s chicken, she was nice enough to share so I got to try a bit of Chef Smith’s chicken.

Now, my goal is to make sure that recipe gets exposed somewhere.  Rumor has it, it will be published in Tastebud Magazine, but it doesn’t I vow to follow Chef around until he gives it to me and I’ll publish it for you.

Until then, enjoy!