Editor Stephanie Woo spent her Sunday with a super bowl of another sort... Here's her report from the Guac Bowl:
Every Super Bowl Sunday, dozens crowd the Los Angeles home of Adam Pava for his annual Guac Bowl, a virtual Dionysian tribute to all things guac ... and many things that shouldn't be guac.
The event is a culinary science fair of sorts, both a guacamole celebration and competition. As you wander the exhibit space that in earlier years was Adam's dining room and is now his yard, you see that most entries are themed.
Puns are popular, though some focus on the idea itself (Michelle Guacman made an appearance this year) and others on the food (Rice Guacies, anyone?). Others aren't really about either (Han Solo was frozen in guacamole, rather than carbonate, a few years back), but they look cool. And many of the
visual effects carved and crafted out of the hundreds of avocados - the host does keep an official tally - sacrificed to the Guac Bowl cause over the years make you think, "Only in Hollywood."
And, yes, there are awards. If you've got a mean guacamole recipe, you might set your sights on the best traditional guac category. If you're a whiz with culinary creations, you could offer up an alternative guac, a category that has included everything from surprise ingredients (maybe just a dash of wasabi) to genre hybrids (a guac-infused beer won in 2011). The candidates for the best presentation category often look like museum installations, but definitely of the modern art variety. The concept of the Walking, Talking Guac King, a neighbor boy hired to serve guacamole and chips out of his sombrero one year, might just fetch a fortune in a SoHo gallery. And for those that aim the highest but fall the farthest,
there's the Icarus award (this year's winner was the Guacquarium, made with anchovies).
And if you can't even manage to snag that award, well, then you're like me and my husband.
Our always gracious host gave my husband one of his first jobs in Los Angeles, and while the job only lasted about a year, our invitations to Guac Bowl keep coming. So we pack up every year, with our plastic bowl of hastily made guacamole and a diorama that might have earned us an "outstanding" on a fourth-grade English book report, but will never secure us a spot on the golden trophies.
But we continue to rack our brains for those puns and mash up those
avocados, just to be part of the fun. Our comparatively pitiful entries have included:
Guac-toberfest (based on the staples of life - beer, sausage and guac);
Guac for the Cure (samplers scooped their guac out of a pink-ribbon-shaped bowl and by the end of the night, we had earned 36 cents to support breast cancer research);
Guac-ception (based on that mind-bending cinematic hit of 2010, a white van was suspended in a dream state above a bowl of guac);
Attack the Guac (based on a little seen but thoroughly enjoyable British alien invasion film set in South London). One more movie-themed entry and our guac trilogy will be complete.
This food blog is not the first media source to notice the Guac Bowl. As its host points out, it's gotten plenty of publicity in years past, but the best wrap-up of the event still comes from the host himself. So if you'd like to see more, including more entries from this year and past years, head over to the official Guac Bowl website, at www.guacbowl.com
Every Super Bowl Sunday, dozens crowd the Los Angeles home of Adam Pava for his annual Guac Bowl, a virtual Dionysian tribute to all things guac ... and many things that shouldn't be guac.
The event is a culinary science fair of sorts, both a guacamole celebration and competition. As you wander the exhibit space that in earlier years was Adam's dining room and is now his yard, you see that most entries are themed.
Puns are popular, though some focus on the idea itself (Michelle Guacman made an appearance this year) and others on the food (Rice Guacies, anyone?). Others aren't really about either (Han Solo was frozen in guacamole, rather than carbonate, a few years back), but they look cool. And many of the
visual effects carved and crafted out of the hundreds of avocados - the host does keep an official tally - sacrificed to the Guac Bowl cause over the years make you think, "Only in Hollywood."
And, yes, there are awards. If you've got a mean guacamole recipe, you might set your sights on the best traditional guac category. If you're a whiz with culinary creations, you could offer up an alternative guac, a category that has included everything from surprise ingredients (maybe just a dash of wasabi) to genre hybrids (a guac-infused beer won in 2011). The candidates for the best presentation category often look like museum installations, but definitely of the modern art variety. The concept of the Walking, Talking Guac King, a neighbor boy hired to serve guacamole and chips out of his sombrero one year, might just fetch a fortune in a SoHo gallery. And for those that aim the highest but fall the farthest,
there's the Icarus award (this year's winner was the Guacquarium, made with anchovies).
And if you can't even manage to snag that award, well, then you're like me and my husband.
Our always gracious host gave my husband one of his first jobs in Los Angeles, and while the job only lasted about a year, our invitations to Guac Bowl keep coming. So we pack up every year, with our plastic bowl of hastily made guacamole and a diorama that might have earned us an "outstanding" on a fourth-grade English book report, but will never secure us a spot on the golden trophies.
But we continue to rack our brains for those puns and mash up those
avocados, just to be part of the fun. Our comparatively pitiful entries have included:
Guac-toberfest (based on the staples of life - beer, sausage and guac);
Guac for the Cure (samplers scooped their guac out of a pink-ribbon-shaped bowl and by the end of the night, we had earned 36 cents to support breast cancer research);
Guac-ception (based on that mind-bending cinematic hit of 2010, a white van was suspended in a dream state above a bowl of guac);
Attack the Guac (based on a little seen but thoroughly enjoyable British alien invasion film set in South London). One more movie-themed entry and our guac trilogy will be complete.
This food blog is not the first media source to notice the Guac Bowl. As its host points out, it's gotten plenty of publicity in years past, but the best wrap-up of the event still comes from the host himself. So if you'd like to see more, including more entries from this year and past years, head over to the official Guac Bowl website, at www.guacbowl.com
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