 I'm Tom Handel here at WMPG's Mardi Gras Fat Tuesday with Dale Robin Goodman, Director of Development at WMPG and it's hard to believe that anybody wouldn't know what this is all about but there may be somebody who doesn't know what's going on here so could you explain this what's going to happen? Well this has been going on for 24 years if you can believe that and so this is this year we have 11 different restaurants who come up with their best Cajun or New Orleans inspired dish some are very traditional some are really innovative and they come here to Woodbury Campus Center here at USM and WMPG has hosted this party as I say for 24 years the participants come they go through the room as you've seen them do here and they have a ballot and they choose their favorites and we award a trophy to the Cajun Cook and Champ. It's a trophy that they win is that what they get? That's what they get and a lot of attention and love from WMPG and it's really a fun day our DJs are playing New Orleans music all day and at one o'clock which is coming up here soon we've got a live band the Cajun Aces local Cajun Stars. What is WMPG do this? Why? You know when I came to the to this as my work I asked the same question it's not a fundraiser for us it really is just a thank you to all the the people the USM to the city of Portland and all its citizens you know all its inhabitants who help WMPG exist it's all our supporters it's our listeners it's people who love food in this foodie city it's just a party with WMPG the New Orleans connection really starts with the music right we've always had a music connection to New Orleans partly because of the French Acadian which became the Cajun tradition partly because of that partly after Hurricane Katrina we helped the community station down there recover by fundraising for them recover from the damage that they you know had from the storm so we've always had a strong connection with New Orleans. Okay I'm here with Calesta and Mandy from SMCC and they've got their own offerings what do you have today? We have red beans and rice and did you come up with this recipe yourself? We had help from our chef for Scotty we had the idea to do red beans and rice we wanted to do something that we could make a lot of very easily and she came up with this like she's like we can do a lot of this and it'll last good and it'll taste even better. What's your special ingredient or can you give that away? We've got all of our ingredients right on the sign but I feel like andouille sausage is the main ingredient along with the kidney beans. What kind of sausage? Andouille which is a classic Cajun sausage and is this the first year that you're both here individually? Yes. What's it like preparing something like this for a sort of a competitive atmosphere like this? I guess it kind of like steps things up you want to make sure everything's garnished and that we're quick and efficient. Have you had any taste testers up to the table yet? We've sent out maybe four or five already and we haven't had any complaints so hopefully. How many students have been involved with the process just you two? There was probably about 10 involved yeah. How did they all get involved? It was in our one of our culinary classes we had Maureen came in and she was like you guys want to do this and we were like yeah so we came up with the idea in our class and we've had help with our class and from others. How does the spiciness in this compare to other dishes do you think? Just from what I've tasted I feel like ours like I mean it's probably like one of the top three in spiciness but other people have like a honey like spice sauce that they're putting on theirs and they're all different kinds of heat. What do you look to do after this you're going to school for this? What kind of things would you like to be involved with? Ultimately I love working on the line and everything but I want to be like a chef instructor like our chef Rascotti just because I've learned so many things from such great instructors. I'm not 100% sure yet. I really love working on the line I love the like best pace of it I love the feeling of accomplishment when it's over it's like wow we just served like however many people like in this span of an hour like that's insane I just love doing it. I'm here with Jay Norris and you're from? I'm from Jason Chafalai Kitchen and catering and what are you serving today? I have a slow cooked chicken and undue gumbo with a homemade roux which is kind of rare I'm from down south Louisiana so this is the way I grew up eating it and we have a shrimp creole here which is a lighter shrimp stew that is slow cooked over a couple of days and it's got a process going on it's very good. Have you been here before for the WMP GMB? I have not this is my first time and I always wanted to bring a little bit of Cajun the food that I grew up on. Cajun food is a very poor food it's things that people could fish out of the Gulf of Mexico they could take out of the bayous and the Chafalai basin and I grew up with that food it's very common down there so I started cooking a few years ago and sharing desserts and and gumboes and A2 phase with people here in Portland and they seem to really like it. It's sort of like home cooking for you right isn't it? This is home cooking for me sometimes we made the the roux a little lighter but yeah definitely during the winter football season tailgate you always bring out the gumbo we have seafood gumbo but the Cajun area katiana which is the Cajun area of Louisiana they do mostly chicken and sausage gumbo whereas New Orleans and the Creoles would have basically seafood gumbo so there's a big difference there New Orleans is not Cajun and and and the Cajun country is not necessarily Creole. Hi yeah I'm here with Eugene from Gritty McDuff's and what are you serving today? I am serving crayfish and shrimp gumbo today. Okay and what are you what's in it what does it consist of? So I got 10 pounds of crawfish and I boiled them down to use the stock for the base then I did a nice chocolate roux took about 45 minutes under the stove with the Marapa which is celery, green peppers and onions and you know it was like it was like a day and a half process but you know as the the smiles of people's faces is well worth it so. This is the first time you're here at WMPG? This is the first time yes I was chosen to represent Gritty's and hopefully it'll be able to do it in the future so. You knew this rice here as it goes with it? Oh yes the rice is getting served as well that was provided by USM it looks like a shrimp jumbo live. Wow okay yeah. Is this something you serve at Gritty McDuff's? This isn't something we don't serve at Gritty McDuff's but you know that keeps on being hit like this you know you never know so we give the people what they want. How do you get the recipe who came up with the recipe? I came up with the recipe myself I you know I'm pretty good at making soups so I've been pretty good pal I'm good with flavors so you know I saw what I wanted for ingredients and I put everything together and it came out just as expected so you know I like yeah I like putting smiles on people's faces so you know that's what I'm doing today so. Great well thanks for taking the time to talk to us. Yeah no problem thank you very much. I'm here with Zach and Logan from Pull Boys and Pickles and what do you prepare today? We've prepared red beans and rice. I know what's what's what goes into that? What goes into that that's andouille sausage as well as capricola salami ham and then we add some spice and a little bit of hog stock. How has it been received here? Pretty well everyone seems to be digging it. Is this is this uh you've been here before I take it? Oh yes sir this is our uh well my personal third year. Third year? Yes sir. And are you the chef did you create this recipe? Uh no I did not create the recipe it was there before I started but keeping it going. And is this something that usually you serve at Pull Boys Pickles? Oh yeah absolutely. It's a pretty popular dish we have a couple other soups but this is one of uh the fan favorites I'd say. What do you enjoy most about being here? I just like the uh the music everybody seems in a good mood like to try new food you know and I'm excited to go and try some food at the end. Have you uh tasted this stuff yourself and uh do you eat it regularly? Oh yeah I love the uh red beans and rice soup personally yeah. I'm here with Colleen and Megan from Simply Vegan by Silly's and what are you serving today at the Mardi Gras? We are serving and dewy sausage biscuits and gravy. No this is vegan right? It is all vegan the entire cafe is vegan so you can go in you have all kinds of choices you don't even have to think about it. So what is in the the sausage? The sausage is textured vegetable protein and uh so I just reconstitute it with broth and spices and then make a white sauce with soy milk and hemp milk. Is this something you serve regularly at Silly's? These we've been specialing out um I just did uh soy riso biscuits and gravy and then so this is the end dewy then I'll move in to like maple and fennel and stuff like that so it's been a special right now. Have you been to this Mardi Gras event here before? I have this is I took a couple of years off but uh we were fortunate we won three years in a row and uh then I had to take a little hiatus and so we've been probably six or seven times. Yeah um I was gonna ask Megan Megan oh Megan yeah how do you how do you like uh being here with the crowd and serving? I enjoy it very much. I'm here with uh Elena and Drew from um Bayside American Cafe what are you serving today? Uh it's a Tennessee gumbo with uh some biscuit crumbles and a spiced hot honey. Where do you get the recipe how do you get the recipe from? Uh it's I take a little bit uh from my family down south and some traditional Cajun cooking and sort of blend them together uh some big batch family meal style and is this something that you regularly serve down at Bayside? It is not currently but it has been a fan favorite amongst our staff as we've been testing it out so we're thinking maybe we'll do something similar and throw it on the menu for specials. Now you just gave me a biscuit with some honey on it what's that all about I've never had anything like it was very unusual. So we were trying to do a couple of different things with fusion and blending some things together um and so with this uh with this biscuit what we've tried to do is get a couple of different textures and then combine the sweet and the heat so that they balance each other out so we're trying to do layers with our flavors all around. Oh nice. Yeah. And where do you get the recipe from is this a family thing or did you research it? The the roux is a is a family recipe a Tennessee base and then I built a traditional gumbo out of that so it's uh it's a little bit sweeter uh the heat's a little bit more layered and slow and it's not quite as salty or savory. Is this the first time you're here at WMPG? This is my third year and this is Drew's second. How has it been how do you enjoy the part of the festive atmosphere? Love this place and it gets busier and busier every year I feel like they're going to need to expand pretty soon. This uh so far it's been my favorite part of March every year I just love cooking these big batches and having everybody tell me how good I am at it. Oh great thank you very much for talking to us. Thank you for your time. I'm here with Egan and Bill from Whole Foods and then what have you prepared today? Today we have a chicken andouille and crab gumbo. What goes into that? So we've got andouille sausage which is locally made. I've got some lake punch trained blue crab gone in there too. I made a dark roux it's got some okra and then the holy trinity which is onions, celery and bell peppers. And I noticed that you're the only uh a grocer here really? We are we are I think we're the only retailer here um but representing good food is just what Whole Foods does so. Now Whole Foods does sell some prepared food right? We do we have a whole bar of you know prepared foods and meals that you can get hot. And this is one of the things that you regularly serve there? This isn't regularly served there but they will from time to time in the season put some gumbo on the hot. I don't know if this is putting you on the spot but can you get all those ingredients at Whole Foods? You can actually yeah yeah I I bought every single thing and made it with it. And where did you come up with the recipe? So the recipe is I was taught a long time ago working in kitchens how to make gumbo by a mentor of mine so making traditional gumbo is a skill that I picked up from him. Oh is this a traditional southern recipe? This is a very very traditional southern recipe yeah especially for this time of year or two around Mardi Gras. And how have you found the reception to it here? People loving it people loving it yeah I'm really happy. And you guys have been here before how do you like it coming to this event? We have been here before and it's always great I mean you get the name out there you get people coming by you know we see customers and things like that too so. Bill have you tested a lot of the other foods here? Not yet but I plan to get around to see what's up and maybe vote for us. I'm here with Olivia and Sarah from USM Dining and they've prepared something this year what is it? It is a shrimp and crawfish at Touffé. Now it makes sense that you would be here at USM preparing something and you actually won one year right? Absolutely. And what's the challenge of coming up with a new recipe? It's keeping up with the now and day the local businesses that we have to compete with. And what is in this this dish? So there's shrimp, there's crawfish, there's a little bit of rice in there and there's like kind of it's like a stew kind of base yeah with local Musam Valley farm mushrooms. What's the seasonings that you use? What gives it the flavor? A little cayenne, a little onion, garlic. And what's been the reception so far to this dish? They love it. They really enjoy it. They said it has a lot of flavor, a lot of seasoning and they can taste the shrimp and the crawfish. I'm here with Greg from Lazari and what have you prepared today for this Mardi Gras? I have prepared a shrimp chicken and dewy sausage and ham hot gumbo. We also have a red and white bean vegan gumbo for our vegan friends. What motivated you to give a vegan option since I'm a vegetarian? I really appreciate that. I've been here a number of years. This is probably the seventh or eighth year that I've done this and in earlier years nobody actually had anything for the vegans or vegetarians and being in the university is actually a pretty good community of vegans and I felt bad they didn't have anything to eat so I started making always have a vegan option so that people could have something to eat. Thank you, I appreciate it. You have quite a history here. You actually know how this whole thing started. You were here when it first began? Yes, we actually started over at WMPG back in the 90s. I was local music director at WMPG and a number of DJs. We all love Fat Tuesday and we all love good food and Cajun music so we started bringing in food ourselves and inviting the listeners to come down and celebrate with us so we all cooked ourselves and after two or three years it just started to grow exponentially. We couldn't fit in the radio station anymore. We invited some local restaurants to come down as well and moved over here to the to the Student Center and it's gotten a little bigger every year since so WMPG is still going you know they say radio's dead but the station is alive and vibrant and doing really well and Cajun Cook Off is one of the most fun events that they do every year. I love coming down on Fat Tuesday, good food, good music. I'm here with Mitchell and Will from Celice and what have you prepared today? We've got some sausage and shrimp and grits that it's pretty good pretty spicy. This is the first time I'm seeing grits maybe I've got that wrong but do you actually serve that over? Yeah we put the sausage and shrimp mix right over the grits mixes together real well. Now Celice has been here for a few years but this is the first year you're here? Yep this is my first year working at the competition really excited for it. How do you like the experience of it is it pretty wild? Oh it's an absolute blast I love the music I love the atmosphere it's just a great time. And what what actually goes what's a special ingredient or what's really significant about what what you what for your dish? Well I mean we stuck with the holy trinity of Cajun vegetables which is like green peppers and onions and we stuck mushrooms in there as well usually it's celery but we didn't have any of that on hand. And then for the grits we added a whole lot of cheese to it to really give it a nice creamy base so there's smoked Gouda and Gruyere cheese in there to really add some extra flavor. And that sounds like a good dish in itself. Have you been around to the other tables taste testing? Oh yeah I have definitely made a few laps to get a couple bites. Do you think you've got a good chance at winning? I like our chances yeah I think so I think the grits people really appreciated that. Well good luck thank you very much for talking to me. I'm here with Bill and Corey from Lennis in Westbrook and and what have you prepared today? Today we made a jambalaya bread pudding. And bread pudding sounds like a dessert why did you decide to do that? Well we really just wanted to think outside the box be a little bit more creative and go out on a different route. And so you're on the road today you're all the way from Westbrook. I see a trophy on the table what does that mean? Last year they won first place here and I was very proud of them and we'll see how we do this year. And does it create a challenge for you having created the winning dish last year to create something new and different? Yeah I mean we went out on a whim and found out two days before it started last year and this year we had more time to prepare so it's a little stressful yeah. And did you come up with a recipe yourself? Yes. How did you how did you develop it? What inspired you? Realistically it was kind of we just wanted to make sure we could make enough food to feed all these people on a good budget and this was creative it was easy and fun. Is this something you're going to be serving at the restaurant? I don't know we'll see we'll see we'll find out. I kind of stay out of the kitchen that's Corey and Derek's show they do that thing you know. But I'm sure you've gotten around and tasted the other foods huh? Yes actually yeah there's some great food here today so but we'll keep our fingers crossed that we come in first place you know. Well thank you very much for talking to me. Thank you. Well things are wrapping up here and for my first time here at the WMPG Mardi Gras I sure enjoyed meeting all these great local chefs. If you haven't been already to one of these events you might think you're coming next year and just appreciating the community that's out here with WMPG.