SimCity's Food Expo 2006

Food Expo 2006
June 10: Opening Ceremony
Opening Address: Alia Kent, SpokesSim
Ribbon Cutting of Food Expo Site "Farmer's Market"

Food in the Garden
The Importance of Fresh Veggies-Leroy Mendenhall

Food in the Kitchen
Celebrity Cookoff Play-by-Play-Gretta Mendenhall

Food on the Table
Leftovers - Avery Wilsonoff

June 30: Closing Ceremony
Closing Address: Alia Kent, SpokesSim
Results and Future of Food Expo: Leroy Mendenhall
Best Contributor 2006 Presentation
Neighborhood Dinner

Leftovers
Avery Wilsonoff

When our hood signed the deal to allow residents to go downtown, we had no idea that we would gain so much more, especially in the area of food preperation and storage. Before the deal, families hated cooking and having the food spoil, often gourging themselves and eating when they were no hungry so that thier precious simoleans wouldn't go to waste. Now, families have the ability to store food in thier personal inventories. But what's the best way to store these leftovers?

Some families keep the meals left on the serving platter and every so often instead of cooking a meal, they pull out the serving platter and everyone eats thier fill of yummy hotdogs, pancakes and even chili. This is a great way to have dinner on Friday nights instead of calling the pizza company and even allows the little ones to pick and chose thier desired meal, like a buffet! Other families save individual meals for teenagers headed off to university so they won't have to suffer thru cafeteria food and can devote more time to studies. In fact, this method has increased so much in Apple Valley, that university officials are considering changing the fee structure so that students pay one fee for housing and another fee for board. I've encountered numerous pregnant women who upon discovering that they were pregnant, cooked several individual meals, or saved the leftovers so that during thier third trimester (which is the hardest on the body) they didn't have to stand up and cook, but could simply eat a meal once they were hungry. This method also works well for sick sims who are too tired to cook.

Either way you look at it, leftovers are a great money saving tool and pretty darn tasty too.

The Importance of Fresh Veggies
Leroy Mendenhall

Now that delivery of groceries, chinese food and pizza have kept residents at home, many families miss out on the importance of going to thier local market and chosing thier own fresh veggies.

Delivered groceries are edible, but how can you insure that your basket of food stuffs were not sitting in some factory downtown waiting for your call. You can avoid this issue when you visit your local market. Just look at how the dirt still clings to the veggies, yep, this stuff was freshly picked that morning. The drops of dew still cover the yummy foodstuffs and you can smell the nature and occasional natural fertilizer when you place the item in your basket. The fresher your foodstuffs, the more healthy they are for your body.

What's that? No time to visit the market? Pishposh! Make it a family event and browse the stalls for fresh fruit, buy a warm sweetcake or simply enjoy a cup of coffee or play a game of tag. When you return home, cook some of your finds for dinner-my favorite way to display my treasures from a day at the market is through a fresh chef salad, but you can add your finds to fish or steak. Just remember, fresher is better.


Celebrity Cookoff Play-by-Play
Gretta Mendenhall

We're lucky enough to have a great crowd for the celebrity cook-off, especially considering that the event had to be held by the light of the moon due to one contestant's extreme sensativity to sunlight. Tonight's event features two celebrities well known in SimNation for thier artistic talents competing against each other for the title of Food Expo's Celebrity Chef 2006. The contestants will have one hour to cook a meal that must feature the secret ingrediant which is...well, let me first introduce the contestants. We have Arrendale Height actress Zaida Burrego and director Shawn Marsh, son of late actor, Silas Marsh. The judges for this event are actress Starr Grey, the owner of Farmer's Market Leroy Mendenhall (hi dad!) and chef Fidel Kent. The judges will award a maximum of five points on taste, presentation and originality. Now, the secret ingrediant is....rose petals?

1:00 left
-The contestants look bewildered due to the strange secret ingrediant, but Zaida quickly reacts and starts grabbing her pan and several baskets of fresh apples and a cactus. Shawn isn't too far behind as he grabs slices of fresh llama and numerous stalks of dills.
0:45 left
-Zaida has thrown the apples and rose petals into the food processor and she appears to be juicing the cactus-ouch! Shawn has placed the llama into the oven to roast and has started slicing the dill and adding the rose petals to a sauce of melted butter and garlic.
0:30 left
-Zaida has ran back to the food table to grab several large eggplants! Shawn is pouring his sauce over the roasting llama. Zaida has begun slicing the eggplants in half and scooping out the meat!
0:15 left
-Zaida has begun boiling the insides of the eggplant and has taken to slicing even more apples. Shawn is slicing the llama for the plates and appears to be placing whole rose heads on top of the meat. Zaida has now put the boiled eggplant back into the eggplant shells and has mixed the noodles with the apple rose petal mixture.
0:00 left
-Time's Up! Let's hear what our judges have to say.

Starr Grey: I must say, I love the presentation from Zaida's Apple Rose Pasta, though the flavors of the eggplant and the apple seem to be in competition. The flavors of Shawn's Roast Llama in a Butter Rose Sauce were better suited for each other, however I felt the presentation was lacking as well as the orginality.
Leroy Mendenhall: Both contestants had very original ideas using the rose, Zaida's dish has a sweet accent to the salty eggplant noodles, which the rose-butter sauce adds an extra element to Shawn's llama dish.
Fidel Kent: I disagree with Starr. I felt that the flavors of Zaida's Apple Rose Pasta were great together, and she filled a need for vegetarians by excluding meat and it's byproducts and gluten from wheat. Shawn's Llama was a little bland and I felt that the rose petals were an afterthought, and could barely notice them.

Here are the scores:
Zaida Burrego: taste=3, presentation=2, originality=4. Total= 9
Shawn Marsh: taste=4, presentation=3, originality=3. Total=10

Congratulations Shawn Marsh, you're the Food Expo's Celebrity Chef 2006!