Dining services adds student contest winners' recipes to menu

While FristFest gatherers waited in line for free cotton candy and popcorn on the South Lawn Thursday, Rosa Poetes '05 took center stage and raised a large cardboard check as an award for her mother's Mediterranean chicken recipe.

As winner of dining services' "There's No Place Like Home!" recipe contest, Poetes won $250 toward the cost of flying her mother from Germany to Princeton to sample dining services' preparation of her family recipe on May 14, when all four award-winning recipes will be served.

Dining services director Stuart Orefice said the purpose of the contest — co-sponsored by the USG and open to undergraduate and graduate students who have purchased a meal plan with dining services — was to add variety to meals as well as gain feedback from students.

"It's nice to hear from our customers — our students," he said. "We hear all the time on our website 'you should try this,' so now we finalized it."

Poetes said she entered the contest because she was excited about the possibility of bringing her mother to campus. She said she had difficulty, however, choosing a recipe, because she likes all of her mother's cooking.

"I chose her chicken because I thought it might be good to choose something people here might enjoy, since my mother cooks lots of Scandinavian food back home," Poetes said.

Following the award presentation, Poetes was so excited that she woke her mother with a phone call at 4 a.m. German time to share the news.

"She was a little sleepy but very excited," Poetes said of her mother, who will stay in Princeton for a week following the dinner.

The judging team included dining services' seven chefs — one from each residential college, one from the graduate college and one pastry chef. Though many of the 85 recipes received were for deserts, Orefice said there was a good variety of dishes from which the chefs could choose.

The chefs "rated them based on creativity, servability and popularity in terms of recognizing trends," he said.

Orefice said Poetes's Mediterranean chicken was special because "the chefs liked the mixes of fresh herbs and the addition of oranges."

He said the chefs also considered the recipe's origin, which they learned after contacting the 12 semi-finalists.

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"They gave more weight to those that were authentic," Orefice said. "Some of the chefs knew some of the recipes came from cookbooks. Our chefs are pretty savvy and recognize some of the dishes."

Another prize-winning dish was Bacardi Rum cake, which earned Jennifer Grojean '05 100 free dining points for second place.

Jessica Aisenbrey '05 took home the third prize, a Princeton sweatshirt, for her curry garbanzo bean salad. Jenitta Kwong '04 received a cookbook as an honorable mention prize for her "pe'consummate' berry cheesecake" recipe.

While Poetes is thrilled with her first prize, she acknowledged that there is little difference between the first and second place winners and said she was pleased to be in the runoff with a good friend.

"To distinguish between them just means you put one as the winner and one is left behind," she said. "Because we are friends, it was kind of a bonding experience — just the fact that we were on stage together."

The winning recipes are currently being prepared in the kitchens for the first time — the chefs did not prepare them for tasting during the judging process, with the selection based entirely on the written recipe.

"[The chefs] are all culinary graduates," Orefice said. "They can tell by reading the recipe and know whether or not they work."