We announced our ridiculously delicious challenge back in October and it has been a work-in-progress since. Anyone who won or judged a contest from mid-October through the New Year is eligible … the count is currently around 30 challengers. We will be adding an additional 10 challengers at our whim (and will likely give special consideration to anyone who has been and continues to be part of this dialogue about voting, hint hint)
The concept for this challenge is still crystallizing, so, please check it out below and let me know if you have any feedback/suggestions. It is going to be a multiple-stage challenge with a number of hurdles to clear and a big prize at the end. And, we are going to try our hardest to make it live up to its name: the Ridiculously Delicious Challenge.
Stage One – Entry Post – Marx Foods Selects Top 30
To start some time in January. We will ask challengers to pick three items out of a list of 10-20 items (kobe burgers, smoked salmon, meyer lemons, saffron, edible flowers, etc, etc. … big stuff … not just a little bottle of truffle oil). Challengers must answer this question on their blog (or ours if they don’t have one): What ridiculously delicious thing would you do with your chosen three items? Note: Challengers should be sure to pick the right three items because the person who wins the Ridiculously Delicious Challenge will receive the three they picked in stage one as their prize, shipped to them on the day of their choosing.
We pick the top 30 and send them a surprise box of 8 pantry ingredients.
Stage Two – Develop an Original Recipe – Reader Poll Selects Top 20
Challengers use 2 of the 8 ingredients to make an original recipe to post on their blog (or ours if they don’t have one). The top 20 challengers advance via a reader poll.
Stage Three – Makeover a Recipe – Challenger’s Choice Selects Top 10
Challengers use 3 of the remaining 6 ingredients to makeover a dish made by one of the challengers in Stage 2. The creators of the 10 most madeover dishes will advance, even if the creator has already been eliminated in Stage 2. If there is a tie for 10th place, then a volunteer blogger (tbd) will break the tie.
Stage Four – Second Shipment – Mixed Selection Methods to Get Final 5
We ship two perishable ingredients, such as crabmeat, kobe steak, heirloom potato or microgreens to the remaining 10 challengers. Challengers use 1 of their remaining 3 pantry ingredients and one of the perishable ingredients. 5 Challengers advance. A reader poll selects two. An internal challengers’ poll of the remaining challengers selects two (before the poll ends). Marx Foods selects one.
Stage Five – The Final Recipe – Winner Chosen by a Panel of Bloggers
Challengers use both of the remaining pantry ingredients and the other perishable ingredient to develop an original recipe. 2-5 Blogger Volunteers choose the winner.
Thoughts?
Is this too much? Too complicated? Too many stages? Fun or boring? Delicious or not? Do you like the voting methods? This is still very much not set in stone, so please let me know if you have any thoughts.
when does this contest end? June? 🙂
Can’t win. 😉 Probably Feb to April.
Hi again Justin! I LOVE your creativity in voting processes for the different stages, especially Stage 4. Hope you will add us to your list of contestants in January! Regarding voting for Stage 2, I still like a weighted average of poll, participants and your vote. And, just like planning and cooking a good meal, it takes time. If the competition goes until June – so what. We are all having fun doing what we like best – cooking and eating!
The one thing I’d change is the need to use “3 of the remaining 6 ingredients” to do a makeover in stage 3. I’d say any 3 of the 8 ingredients should be fair game, otherwise it might make some recipes nearly impossible to re-do. That all depends on what the 8 ingredients are and how interchangeable they are, but if a person can’t use two of the original ingredients, and they’ve used the whole supply of 2 of their own ingredients (assuming these aren’t things they have on hand or could procure quickly), that leaves them with 4 possible items to work with, and they’d need to use 3 of those.
Gah. I hope that makes sense…
How about this? The chosen 20 from the reader poll in Round 2 have to pick a recipe and make it as close to the original as possible, rather than remaking it in a different way. Maybe they each get a duplicate box of ingredients so they have enough to make the other person’s recipe, in case they used the same things in their own recipe and have none left. And that’s also a little token for them for getting those votes. Otherwise, basically they’re just earning the right to cast a vote.
The top 8 (or whatever) whose recipes get remade move on to the next round. And then two (or whatever) of the people who made the recipes are chosen based on how well they remade the dish they chose. So they have incentive to choose a good recipe and to make it well.
Seems to me that if those 20 people are going through the trouble of making those dishes, there should be some chance for them to advance based on the work they do on the recipes.
At that point, everyone’s still got 6 pantry items they can use – I think you shouldn’t count the use of the 2 that were in the remade recipes – so you could require the use of 2 in each of the next 2 rounds.
Hi Justin, and Happy New Year!
The contest sounds fun, delicious, complicated enough to keep it interesting, and if it goes on till June, it’s OK by me! The voting sounds spread out enough to make it fair to all. I would love to be a part of this, one way or another!
Considering how much conversation there was about this during the Iron Foodie, I’m a little surprised there’s not more conversation now. Personally, I’m looking forward to this, no matter how it’s structured. It sounds like an interesting challenge, and the different layers of competition will keep it lively for quite a while.
More from me on the bracket idea (tried to post it on the other entry; technical difficulties):
My primary idea was to make it possible/reasonable for judges to actually make the recipes and compare them that way.
Because, honestly, that’s the oddest part to me about most internet recipe contests: People vote on recipes that sound good. But they don’t know a) if they actually are good or b) if the recipe “works”.
So, say you start with 16 competitors and 4 judges. Each judge makes four dishes (which were assigned head-to-head based on…whatever) and declares 2 winners.
8 competitors advance. 4 additional judges make 2 dishes apiece.
4 competitors advance. Two of the 2nd round judges make those dishes.
Then you’re down to the final 2 and whatever combination of judges from the eight you already have on hand can make those two recipes and vote.
It’s a little complicated and provides a bit more commitment from the judges, but it would definitely be interesting.