Iron Chef at the Library

Last summer our teen-driven Iron Chef program was so well perceived that they requested it again for this summer. And when you have such enthusiasm to plan an event like this from teens, then you HAVE to do it right! As someone who still hasn't seen the show, without our teens and fellow librarian blogs, I would have been at a complete loss on where to begin with this.

The main thing the teens wanted from this program was to create, eat and be judged but they were very concerned that I give them a secret ingredient to work with. Of course, this stumped me the most.  Last year it was green apples; this year it was blueberries and/or strawberries. Some other options were graham crackers or chocolate.

Two weeks before the program, our department had received a phone call letting us know someone would be bringing a group of 12 to the event. So when I went out the day of the program to buy supplies I bought quite a bit more that I normally would have.

Some ingredients not pictured above are milk, eggs, whip cream, spray butter, melted chocolate and of course our berries. The crowd favorites are always the pie crusts and tortillas.

To get us started we decide on groups (teams of two) and rules. Last time we played where each team claimed different ingredients but it ended up where the teams just shared what they all wanted. So this time, instead of ingredients being exclusive to separate teams,  we all just shared everything. They were given the option to have one item that could be exclusive to their team but decided against it. We really just let them make their own rules :p

On a separate table from the ingredients we had a work station which was assortment of baking and mixing supplies. This included a griddle, a chocolate melting pot, blender and an assortment of mixing bowls along with spoons, spatulas and alike. Cleaning the blender bowl sure did keep me busy though!
 

Pardon the ugly pink tablecloth *gag*

Each group made enough samples to share with the other teams before presenting their creation to the group.

To decide winners, each person was given two pom poms as voting chips with the instruction that only one team member could vote for themselves once. The two winning team mates were given colorful wire whisks with a badge that said Iron Chef Winner and the other groups were each allowed to choose something special out of our SRP prize box.

All in all, this is one of TAG's favorite, most talked about program of the summer and I'm sure we'll be bringing it all out again next year. Tip for next time though, you can never have too much whip cream!