Capital Food Fight

What Tony Bourdain really hates
Is when cooking becomes a rat race
He can't stand Bobby Flays
But he loves to fundraise
And with who else but Jose Andres?

(yeah, yeah, I know...my second limerick and I'm already resorting to awkward pluralization of names and slant rhymes? well, get used to it.)

Last week I had the privilege of attending Capital Food Fight, an annual fundraiser for DC Central Kitchen (an awesome group, btw, if you are feeling charitable/guilty during the holidays and are looking to donate money: www.dccentralkitchen.org). The event as a whole was incredible: around 1300 well-dressed people in the Ronald Reagan Building socializing, posturing, and most of all, eating! Something in the range of 50-60 restaurants were in attendance, providing hundreds upon hundreds of delicious and relatively bite-sized dishes. The variation was astounding, from sushi to etouffee to sliders, and everything was ridiculously tasty.

The highlight of the event for me (beyond the food and the open bar) was the main attraction: a series of ten-minute iron-chef style cookoffs between DC area chefs (and a few secret celebrities). The cooking itself was fun and impressive...if I could make dishes half as good in twice the time, I would be a very, very happy person. The best part, though, was definitely the hosts.

Anthony Bourdain and Jose Andres have both had Food Network shows, have cooked all over the world, written cookbooks, blah blah. They're great chefs. More importantly, they were just hilarious at this event. From politics (making fun of Rick Perry) to the world of entertainment (Kim Kardashian's body came up a number of times) to wonderfully inappropriate humor (I think Jose Andres probably compared every piece of meat that was cooked to boobs at some point), they just got funnier and funnier as the night went on.

If you're ever in DC for this event in the future, I highly recommend it. Tons of fun.