Joanie Tobin Takes the Cake (or the mac n cheese)!

The Mac n Cheese Bake-Off of 2009 was super yummy! Nine people entered their unique homemade mac n cheese (mnc) dishes, judged by four feared judges: Kevin, Joey, Brian and me.

The Judges

No we are not sheriffs. We were wearing stars labeled “Judge” but Joey thought it said “Jorge” (pronounced hor hey). We wore them so people would know who would be judging them…I mean their dishes and also so they could bribe us with compliments and drinks.

There were a variety of mnc dishes, including vegan, chicken sausage, grandma-style, spicy, and ham & cheese. Everyone laid out their dishes at once, labeled them from 1-9 and included a brief description of each of them.

MNC Dishes

Myself and the other judges collaborated in the beginning and checked out all the dishes before we dug in, since one of the categories we were judging the dishes on was presentation. The other categories were taste and creativity. We scored them from 1-5 and the winner received the most points.

Some people paired drinks like Prosecco mixed with St. Germain (so good!) with their mnc dishes as a way to woo the judges. Totally fell for it. Others took the challenge literally and boiled macaroni and then melted swiss cheese on top. Points for creativity!

Of course there would only be one winner though….And that went to Joanie Tobin. She was actually the person who originally inspired me to do this bake-off since she always talked about the different kinds of mnc dishes she tries out. So it makes sense that she won.

So what does Joanie get, you ask, as the winner of the Mac N Cheese Bake-Off of 2009? The opportunity to write on this very blog! Yay! Who doesn’t love that?!
Oh yeah and the first, second and third place winners got gifts from Crate & Barrel.

Congrats Joanie on a tasty mac n cheese dish! (Sorry, I’m not going to give away her secret recipe. But here’s a hint: it has apple cider in it.)

The Winner