 I'm a WMPG volunteer and I'm here talking with WMPG development director, Dale Robin Goodman. And it's snowy and cold outside, but we managed to find some heat over in the Cajun cooking section. Yeah, plenty of heat. The food's hot this year. Not all of it, but a lot of it. Yeah. And you are WMPG development director. Did you organize the whole event? This is one of the things that I organized for WMPG. And I work with the restaurants and talk them into how wonderful an event this is. And as you can see, it's very popular and people love to come here and try all the different tastes. And then, you know, we have a vote and then later today, we'll announce the winner. How many years have you been doing? This is the 21st annual. Wow. And it started in the radio studio itself? That's what I hear was before my time. But I hear that the restaurants came to the radio station, our little white house up the street. And here today we're in the Spacious Woodbury Campus Center. But I guess it was quite a mob over there in years past and very cozy. But it's always been a fun event, always been a community event. And people have grown up coming to it. Yep. Do restaurants do all sorts of different dishes? Do you get to see them kind of progress every year? Some of them have a theme and they stay with it and maybe embellish it year to year. Other people, completely different year to year. It all depends on who's cooking. I think you can pretty much always count on seafood, sausage, a creamy base or some of them don't use cream but or tomato-eat base. I mean, there are certain elements of Cajun cooking that I think are always here. And then sometimes people will do something really, really different. And like this year Whole Foods has a pulled pork with Cajun spices, which is a little different. So every year it's just different. Some things you see again and again and other things are new each year. Yeah, so it's really fun to come again and again. How do you choose the restaurants? Because a lot of them aren't Cajun specific? No, there are not many Cajun specific restaurants in and around Portland or in southern Maine. But a lot of them have kind of a type of cuisine or they just have made it known that they're interested or we ask, we ask a lot of restaurants and not everybody can do it every year. And is this a fundraiser for WMPG? Actually it's not. This is our mid-winter party. We throw it every year with the help of the restaurants. We, it's just a big thank you to the local community for the support we get. So it isn't really a fundraiser for WMPG although we always make new friends at this event and maybe even new listeners. But really this is a big thank you to the USM community, to the greater Portland and southern Maine communities for the support we get. And it's a way for the restaurants to maybe reach a clientele that they maybe wouldn't have. So it's kind of win-win-win for everybody and it's a great day and you hear the great music and that's really what it's about. Yeah well it's a great party. Yeah it is. A great happy Mardi Gras. Happy Mardi Gras to you Nora. Thanks for being with us today. Is Cajun food something you do a lot at Bayside Bowl or is it kind of a new thing for you? We definitely have a little bit of a flair for that. We've got beans and rice and chili and things like that on our menu and they're all a little bit on the spicy side. But this is something we make specifically for this event, the shrimp étouffée. Can you describe the dish for us? Well I have our chef right here but I will give my best shot. There's a lot of butter and some vegetables, onions and things and then a lot of spices it has a pretty good spice and then of course shrimp is a lot of shrimp in it because it's shrimp étouffée. Is he making sure that each cup has exactly one shrimp? Am I noticing that? Yeah at least one yes just make sure everyone gets the shrimp experience. Now I'm talking to Nicole Steinmark from Bayside American Cafe and what do you have here today? We have an andouille sausage and chicken gumbo and we're serving that with our basil, scallion, cheddar and cornbread. Do you do Cajun food a lot or is this kind of a fun challenge? We don't do it a lot. We run it on special here and there. We do have one Cajun dish, the Louisiana Bayou Benedict. We put it on the menu right after Hurricane Katrina. We did a benefit and it sold so well that we kept it all these years so and my sous chef Joanna is a really awesome Cajun flavor. She made our gumbo today. Is this your first year doing the competition? No we've been doing it for quite a few years. We actually won last year. Are you excited for this year? Do you think you have a good shot? We've had a lot of good feedback so I'm really excited. I think we're going to do all right. Thank you so much. Here with Jason Shaw from the Whole Foods meat department and this is can you describe the dish for me? Yeah it's a Cajun rubbed smoked pork shoulder and we're serving it with a red pepper cream sauce with Tabasco and thyme. All the Cajun flavors come together in one. It's got a nice texture, a nice heat and then the cooling sour cream. And you smoke this in-house? Yeah we do. We have a full smoke program at Whole Foods Market. Is this something you would serve at the hot bar or anything? We have pulled pork at the hot bar. Not this specific kind. This is a competition only piece. This is our first year in the competition and we're trying to make some waves. Here with Ian Ross with the USM Dining Services. He's the executive chef. It's his second year here. How did it go last year? Last year went pretty good. We got second place next to Bayside Cafe so we're back. We're hungry for some more and see how this year comes out but yeah. Yeah I see you've provided dessert. I did yeah. Last year we did a little alcohol sample. This year we kind of switched it up a little bit. We did a king cake. There is no baby in it so nobody chokes on it or whatever so yeah we have that. Then we did a crawfish a2fay and yeah that's what we're serving today. What exactly is a king cake? Basically it's just like a dough rolled out with cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg and something like that and then it's rolled up and then it's frosted with the different colors and whatnot. They're supposed to represent the three kings or whatnot. There's a whole storyline behind it that was brought to the New Orleans area. Interesting and the a2fay, what goes into that besides small creatures? Small creatures yes. So basically it's onions, peppers, a darkened roux. I used a little bit of a, I cooked the crawfish off, used the stock for the to create the sauce, seasoning, blackening, seasonings, all that kind of stuff. Do you cook crawfish a lot? I have you know I had some of the best crawfish when I was down in Texas a few years ago and I've loved them ever since so yeah. I'm here with Greg Arnold with Congress Street Bar and Grill and this is far from your first year here isn't it? This is our fourth year here at the USM Student Center and 20 years ago we did this over back when they had it at the radio station when they could still fit the people in there before it went overflowing. Nice and you won your first year here? We won four years ago with our shrimp a2fay and we've come in second or third the last couple of years. The competition's pretty stuffed. It's tough to some very good food here today. And what do you have today? We have an andouille sausage, ham hock and chicken gumbo. I spent four hours making the roux which is flour, butter, oil, onions, green peppers and celery and then I've got red peppers, green peppers, andouille sausage, smoked ham hocks and chicken thighs cut up and rubbed and secret spices I can't tell you everything that goes in there. A little gumbo filet and a little what we call the devil's tears. A couple little drops of shrimp crab boil from I had to have it shipped up from the south. It's hard to find up here. Wow so you're an occasion cooking pro. I love it. I've only been to New Orleans once. I hope to go back soon but definitely enjoyed the food while I was there. Do you cook a lot of Cajun food for the restaurant? It's one of our rotating specials. We mostly do classic americana. We make everything from scratch, our stock, sauces, dressings, but everything's affordable and reasonable. But we have several rotating specials. Do you ever know what you'll find? A little Mediterranean, a little Italian, whatever we're in the mood to do. And what do you have for everyone today? We have jambalaya today and our jambalaya is special because it is made with local sausage from Weebit Farm and fresh local chicken from Serendipity Acres. Oh wow is it it's sausage and chicken and what else goes in there? Oh I got the list here from the from the chef. We have brown basmati rice, onion, garlic, chicken stock, tomatoes, cayenne, paprika, garlic powder, granulated onion, black pepper, salt, cumin, thyme, coriander and mustard and a lot of love. A lot of love. And local sprouts is committed to local sourcing. Yes we were doing that from the very beginning. That's one of the reasons we founded the the cooperative to have a democratic workplace and also to promote local food and we're in contact with the actual producers. We work closely with our farmers we know them all by name and that's not a trend that's what we started doing from the beginning in 2009. Nice is this local sprouts first year here? No we've done in the past we've done kind of off and on. It's it's sort of a volunteer activity for people who are able to shake loose the time to do it so it's it's not I think some of the restaurants are paying their people to be here and I'm just getting volunteering. A little sweat equity for it but towards my commitment but but mostly here because it's it's important that we support community endeavors including the radio station. Now I'm with Joey Purrington representing gritty McDuff's down at the old port of Portland and what have you got for us today? Well I gotta say I got some catfish and sausage gumbo. It's basically chicken stock and fish stock and catfish and sausage ground sausage and Italian sausage and some some vegetables like celery and tomatoes and a bunch of spices and all gumboed up for you guys. Nice and you started this last night? Yeah we made this last night and uh heated it up this morning and here I am serving it to all of these fine fellows and seems to be a hit everybody loves it. And this is your first time at the event? Yes this is my first time here at this event. I gotta say I like what other people got going on too you know. I'm here with Chris Baterra the owner of Po Boy's and Pickles the sandwich place out on Forest Ave and you are probably the most thematically appropriate restaurant here too. Thank you very much. All of our food is New Orleans all New Orleans based. Our Po Boy bread comes straight from New Orleans. It's the Liedenheimer bread. We've got the famed Peacemaker sandwich that just made one of the 17 best sandwiches in the state of Maine that's not a lobster roll. What do you have for us today? Today I have red beans and rice. This is pork on duey sausage, red beans and pork base with rice. Is this something you normally make? This is something that's on our menu every day for sure. Nice but not a sandwich. This is not one of our Po Boy sandwiches but we do serve it with toasted Po Boy bread or garlic bread which is the same bread that we use for our sandwiches that come straight from New Orleans. Is this your first year at the competition? This is my first time here but Po Boy's has been here for at least a good four or five years usually with our red beans and rice. Nice so a classic. Yes a very classic traditional New Orleans dish. We've chatted with veteran cooks and first timers here at WMPG's Cajun Cook-Off tried some traditional gumbos, some out-of-the-box pulled pork and we got to finish it all off with some traditional king cake. Now maybe with all that heat we'll be able to brave the cold as we make our way home. WMPG and CTN, this is Nora Byrne.