Every night in the Twin Cities there are about 600 kids who have nowhere to sleep. How to help? A Spam-based cooking competition, naturally.
Jan Conlin, partner and chair of the business litigation group at Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, cooked up the charity angle after embarking on a quest within the firm to find a Spam dish within the firm good enough to get into the Minnesota State Fair. "It was a good way to do good while having fun," she says.
Twenty-two dishes were assessed for taste, originality and plating. State Fair rules applied: no more than 10 ingredients per recipe, and one of those ingredients must be a 12-ounce can of Spam. Among the judges were lawyers William Van Brunt, Andy Horstman and Marty Lueck, and chef Steven Shapley of Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts.
One team in particular had great presentation: its meal was garnished with large, crisp greens-i.e., $100 bills. But that didn't distract from the competitors: Spam curry and Spam wontons with watermelon sauce were among the many delicacies served up. Team Corporate, whose members included Ryan Miest, Anne Rosenberg, Jennifer Ciresi, Jack Roberts, Martina Sailer and Brooke Schober, took first place with a Spam Bloody Mary, for pork's sake. It was delicious.
Best of all, the event raised more than $15,000 for Catholic Charities' Hope Street Program.
The next challenge for the winners: putting their pureed Spam on a stick. It is the State Fair, after all.
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