Chaos Cooking, Anyone?

rmis32 · December 29, 2015, 6:00pm

Have any other HO’s tried this? Chaos Cooking has cooking events where some brave soul volunteers to have guests come to their home, bringing their ingredients and cooking tools. Each participant makes a dish of their choosing at the event. The name Chaos Cooking is fitting, but somehow it seems to work out. The event lasts for about 3-4 hours, with people arriving at different times, so sharing the stovetop and oven is workable. The dishes prepared are not co-ordinated in advance, so the menu is eclectic, to put it mildly. Most of the participants have not met previously. The events are posted on their website and occur in various cities around the country.

Last night was the 3rd time I’ve tried it and it’s a fun way to meet other food enthusiasts and different cuisines.

I

Salsailsa · December 29, 2015, 11:35pm

I like the concept! Never tried it though.

So each person shows up with a dish that they plan to make?

What kind of menus have you ended up with?

rmis32 · December 30, 2015, 4:34am

I wish I had asked for the names of the dishes, but I’ll try to name them in order to give you an idea.

Last night we had a Chinese celery w/fried tofu dish, bruschetta, pasta e ceci, Udon noodles & beef in broth, crisp baked potato wedges, Mexican tortilla wraps w/ cream cheese & veggies as savory tastes.

For dessert, almond cake squares w/ rosewater, Thin pastry shells w/ nuttella & banana filling and an Indonesian subtly sweet warm broth with coconut milk, ginger & mung beans ( sounds weird, but was surprisingly good).

There were a few others that I missed while I was busy cooking my Thai curry.

linguafood · December 30, 2015, 4:40am

I guess you’d hope most participants would bring a dish they really have down.

HolyTerroir · December 30, 2015, 9:24am

Does the vibe ever turn competitive or is everybody on their best behavior? How do you know how many you’ll be cooking for?

And who washes up?

rmis32 · December 30, 2015, 2:46pm

People are pretty civil. It’s a cooperative atmosphere. The host sets a limit on the number of guests. You can see online who signs up. Part of the deal is everyone helps clean up. People are appreciative that the host is opening their home to the group and are eager to help out. That is especially true here in NYC, since many have apartments too small to host an event.

HolyTerroir · December 30, 2015, 3:01pm

Thanks. Interesting. Always fun to go real estate snooping in Manhattan as well!