Competitive cooking isn't limited to the Iron Chef. All over America,
amater chefs across spatulas at more than a thousand competitions, dicing,
mixing, and sautéing their way through pantries full of ingredients to claim
braggin rights, if not big money prizes.
Following a small group fo contestants on the circuit for a year, journalist
Amy Sutherland takes readers on a guided tour of this vast competitice cooking
landscape. You'll visit the high-stress National Beef Cook-Off, where
contestants have one thirty-minute shot at winning the $50,000 prize, the
drunken mayhem of the chili cookoffs in Terlingua, Texas, and the Holy Grail
of competitive cooking with its million-dollar prize, the Pillsbury Bak-Off
contest.
