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Third time’s the Charm? Espresso Chocovine Challenge!!

pladd — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 21:26:29 +0000

So, last week I was picking out some grapes at Food Lion and happened to glance at the wine shelf next to me, near the floor where they shelve their Chocovine (where it belongs). I gave it the wary yet familiar look I reserve for my seasoned foes since we have fought valiantly against each other on more than one occasion. I was about to go on with my shopping when I stopped to wonder why Food Lion thought there should be TWO bottles of Chocovine on display next to Raspberry Chocovine. No way is that right! And then… I saw it. A NEW CHOCOVINE FLAVOR!!!!! Espresso! But it doesn’t even really matter WHAT it was, what matters is that inevitably a new Chocovine Challenge must follow! I never try to fathom the looks Food Lion cashiers give me, but this one was probably because he’d never seen someone SO EXCITED to be buying Chocovine of any flavor.

You probably remember how this goes. Now that Servery Challenges no longer take place in the Servery, entrants have 10 minutes to complete their entry, this time utilizing at least three shots of Chocovine! Then entries are presented, tasted, and voted on. Supplementary awards are then handed out at the entrants’ discretion.

The Entries
First-time competitor and my preschool BFF, Megan was about as quick as me to complete her entry. She also unprecedentedly brought her OWN fancy, monogrammed glassware and decorated it with a gingham ribbon! I am legitimately impressed.

Clearly I did a great job impressing upon her the seriousness of this competition

Drink Name: Cinnamon Surprise
Creator: Megan
Ingredients: Espresso Chocovine, cinnamon, honey, floating stale marshmallows, milk, I think maybe some sprinkles that melted?
Taste: Megan’s drink was pretty delicious! It tasted a lot like something fancy you’d get at Starbucks, and the cinnamon flavor was pretty strong, giving it a little more kick. You couldn’t really taste the awfulness that is Chocovine, just the espresso flavor. Good job successfully masking the vileness of Chocovine, Megan! That has always been the chocovine challenge’s one goal. Well, unless you’re Rachel. Then it’s to traumatize our taste buds.

Once again, my strategy was to be lightning fast and not taste anything beforehand. Gotta believe in yourself.

Yeah, that's right, this drink has the Dumbledore seal of approval.

Drink Name: Sunday Morning Sundae
Creator: Patricia
Ingredients: Espresso Chocovine, milk, French vanilla flavored cool whip, chocolate sauce, chocolate chips, nuts, sprinkles, maraschino cherry
Taste: Unless you were using a straw, it was pretty difficult to get to the actual chocovine drink at the bottom of my cool whip sundae creation. But, once you did, it had been sufficiently diluted by the milk, chocolate sauce, and cool whip to be almost indistinguishable from something edible.

Steven, as usual, went for presentation and concept over actual taste, the only one of us to add MORE chocovine. Also as usual, he took longer than the rest of us.

Most of the time was getting that cherry to stay

Drink name: Tiramisuck
Creator: Steven
Ingredients: Espresso Chocovine, shaved chocolate, cinnamon, cream, cherry and biscotti garnish, probably some other things I’m forgetting
Taste: Surprisingly, this tasted a lot like tiramisu, without the cakey parts. So, pretty much the only parts of tiramisu I like. We all (including Steven!) agreed that none of us really like tiramisu so this may have been a poor concept. Overall, it was kind of weak and tasteless compared to the other drinks. Not that that’s a bad thing, since now we come to…

Thomas! Clearly trying to show Rachel that they are still BFFs! In spirit! Gross Chocovine spirit!

I can assure you, that look is ENTIRELY appropriate

Drink Name: Rob
Creator: Thomas
Ingredients: Espresso Chocovine, Lemon Cherry Sun Drop
Taste: Not as bad as you would think. But that’s not really saying much since I thought I was about to drink something that tasted like vomit. It just tasted kind of fruity… but also slimy? I don’t know if it was something about the carbonation in the soda but these two liquids did not mix well, making the drink full of weird congealed bits of chocolatey grossness. Also, if you stopped stirring it constantly, this happened:

Possibly even more worrying than this is why he decided to name it Rob. Is senior year BFF rivalry coming back in style?

Anyway, after a fierce voting process, it came down to Megan and me! The actual drink parts of our drink tasted fairly similar, but I won a narrow victory, I assume thanks to my shameless attempt to cash in on Harry Potter. Megan and “Cinnamon Surprise” won best appearance, Thomas won “The New Rachel” award and possibly most creative, and Steven won best name! Yay winning!!! Then we watched Thomas’ drink for awhile like a science experiment.

Previously: Chocovine Challenge and Raspberry Chocovine Challenge

Top Cocktail: Chocovine Edition

pladd — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 21:21:25 +0000

Oh, Chocovine. As its tagline claims, it mixes the taste of dutch chocolate and fine red wine. You can buy it at Harris Teeter for about $7, so I knew without even tasting it that it would be magical. So magical that it would need its own Servery Challenge.

Then I remembered I can’t do Servery Challenges anymore, so I waited to bring you a Very Special Valentine’s Day Top Cocktail Special.

Special thanks to James Fox for his MSPaint Skillz

Four Competitors! Ten minutes! … and one bottle of Chocovine!

See the entires and the results here:

First across the finish line, in the vain hope that points will be awarded for speed (which has only happened once, by celebrity guest judge Arya during the Burgers Out Of Not Burgers Servery Challenge of late 2009), is Patricia Ladd, discoverer of Chocovine and impetus behind this very competition. But will her courage, fortitude, speed, creativity, excellent writing skills, smooth alphabetization, and stellar blog writing be enough against this tough competition? WE SHALL SEE. Hoping to capitalize on the Twilight market, Patricia has christened her drink “Vampire Blood” due to its reddish brownish color and syrupy consistency.

Cool under pressure, Patricia poses her in front of the World's Largest Crossword

“Vampire Blood”
Serves: 2, by the time you’re done messing up
Chocovine
Caramel Hot Chocolate Mix
Sloe Gin
Plain Yogurt
Cream
Maybe some other stuff I grabbed

1. Mix everything together in a cup
2. Taste
3. Try to add things to make it taste better
4. Fail at pouring
5. Try to add more things with minimal success
6. Turn to sabotage

With no presentational skills whatsoever, will the judges be impressed by this hastily mixed drink?

Not next to finish, but the next least ridiculous, is first time Servery Challenge Competitor Steven Wiggins, with his drink that I forget the name of. I will therefore be referring to it as “Freckles”.

Steven Wiggins, bringing fresh talent and new ideas to the Servery Challenge game

“Freckles”
Serves: 1
Frozen Strawberries
Chocovine
Orange Brandy
Amaretto
Vanilla Extract
Ice
Chocolate Chips for garnish

1. Blend frozen strawberries
2. Blend everything else
3. Garnish with chocolate chips

Speaking of garnish, two-time Servery Challenge winner James Fox (who sailed to victory with his Japanese pagoda and ketchup lake in the Best Structure Made of French Fries Servery Challenge of 2007) once again brings his considerable talents to the table with his “Raspberry Truffle Kerfuffle”, a drink that certainly looks the part.

To be fair, I only own one classy glass.

“Raspberry Truffle Kerfuffle”
Serves: 1
Chocovine
Frozen raspberries
Lindor truffles (floating)
Reese’s Cup (garnish)

1. Blend Raspberries and chocovine
2. ASSEMBLE!

Last, and by no means least, Rachel Kinney, Servery Challenge Veteran, graced us with one of her startling creations the likes of which I have not seen since her abstract food sculpture, “The Wedding Night”, entered into Servery Challenge: Bridal Catering Edition 2009. Inspired by the McNuggetini, Rachel calls her creation “The Squidstache”, although judges began referring to it as “Willy Wonka’s Nightmare” early on in the judging process.

This is the only way you CAN look after trying this drink

“Squidstache”
Serves: No one, hopefully
Chocovine
Wendy’s Frosty
Chocolate Pudding
Caramel Hot Chocolate Mix
Tequila
Other Unspeakable Things
Marshmallows (garnish)
French fries (garnish)

1. Just throw things in!
2. Try not to throw up

Because there was no celebrity guest judge, the contest was put to popular vote for the first time in Servery Challenge history. The process was long and at times disgusting. Mostly just when dealing with Rachel’s, but still.

Annoying Dramatic Recap As Per Reality Show Requirements

Will it be Patricia Ladd's Vampire Blood that, at least, manages to be edible?

Will it be Steven Wiggins' "Freckles" that just tastes kind of like pudding?

Will it be James Fox's "Raspberry Truffle Kerfuffle" with its enterprising use of Reese's Cups?

Or Rachel Kinney's abomination in the eyes of God and science?

Spoiler alert: the winner was Steven. We all decided we kind of liked pudding. James’ won Best Presentation, Rachel’s won Most Innovative, and I won Looking Best In the Pictures. Truly, a Servery Challenge for the ages. And not just because the taste of Rachel’s drink will haunt my tastebuds’ nightmares forever more.

Servery Steven’s Kitchen Challenge: Self-Portrait Cookie Edition

pladd — Fri, 01 May 2009 05:42:21 +0000

In accordance with list item #70: Servery Challenge: Signature Drink Edition, THE 434 had its final Servery Challenge EVER this week. These always involve Top Chef-style timed challenges, but in the Servery and with some kind of “celebrity judge” (i.e. Brent or a prospie or Arya). My personal favorite was Servery Challenge: French Fry Structure Edition or possibly Servery Challenge: Soup Out of Not Soup Edition, in which I got Drew the Prospie to eat ice cream mixed with yogurt mixed with green beans in a thinly veiled poisoning attempt masked as “dessert soup”.

Yesterday I was so distraught at the end of our Servery Challenge days that I decided to challenge Steven Wiggins to a Servery Challenge-like contest in his kitchen: cookie self-portrait. The celebrity judge? Anyone reading my blog! For the first time ever, the challenge will be decided democratically instead of at the whim of Dr. Gustin or whoever.

The first step in the process was a trash-talk filled trip to HEB for ingredients, made all the sketchier because it was nearly midnight and we kept taking pictures of each other.

While my face is smooth like a sugar cookie, Steven's is pock-marked and hideous like chocolate chip.

Naturally, cookie choice was therefore difficult.

Steven attempted ferocity...

… But I could not be frightened away from my goal of TOTAL DOMINATION.

He therefore had to turn to confusion.

I mean, pickles? What?

Upon getting home, Steven immediately pulled a secret stash of Ghirardelli semi-sweet from the freezer and set to work:

A delicate process

I, on the other hand, decided to go for a more artistic approach, choosing instead to title my piece “Patricia Ladd, in the Sixth Grade” since I knew that mere baked goods could never encapsulate my current awesomeness.

Twizzler's are a creative aid in any artistic process

So, final results:

Steven Wiggins (real life)

Steven Wiggins (cookie self-portrait)

“So all my facial hair is made of shaved Ghirardelli chocolate. Ummm… my nose was a pay day, cut into nose shape. My eyes were peeled York Peppermint Patty. And the irises were the peeling. And my lips were red sugar sprinkles. Ah, and my “lucky spot” as Patricia says was a brown M&M mini.”

Patricia Ladd (real life)

Patricia Ladd (sixth grade cookie self-portrait)

As you can see, the hair is made of orange Twizzlers with purple Twizzler pigtail ties, the eyes of coconut jellybeans and blue Easter “jimmies” (whatever that means), the nose of peach jellybeans (with red splots for the inevitable acne), and the mouth from peanuts on a Terry’s chocolate orange with shiny silver sprinkle braces.

I’m actually not sure who won this contest… Steven relied a lot on sculpting and cutting, whereas I more carefully chose ingredients at the store. His shows more dexterity, but mine more creativity (and awesomeness). Not that I’m biased.

So it’s really up to you to comment with who you think should win. I will announce the results (and secret mystery prize) on Tuesday.

Democracy Has Never Tasted so Delicious!