Recipes

We swear our pants got tighter just looking at the entries to our Cooking Local Pinterest Contest. We asked you all to combine fabulous food and hometown pride in a Pinterest board showing your favorite things to cook and eat where you live, and you delivered bigtime. Big, as in, we’re going to need bigger pants soon.

Lori Smart’s board highlighted some of Eugene, Oregon’s superfoods: salmon, blueberries, chard, wine, and beer (don’t tell us that Sweet Cheeks Chardonnay and Ninkasi Believer Double Red Ale don’t look super). It’s kind of a shame that Eugene Beliebers are, no doubt, too young for Believer.

The pins collected by Greenville, NC’s Allyson Rideout featured some racy southern food items generally not seen here in NYC: cheesecake that drinks creme de menthe, shrimp and grits all hot for each other, peanuts reverting to their base legume-y natures, and various flaming meats. Heavens to Betsy! We had to fan ourselves while ogling this board.

On to Melanie Feigl of Spokane, WA. Melanie! Why, oh why, did you torture us with your pins of delectable fresh-baked cupcakes, huckleberry cake donuts, and even better worse, beer-battered onion rings? Have mercy, woman! We are only human! Not to mention how you filled us with envy; Spokane has a restaurant with a ceiling made of two humongous stained-glass peacocks, and a diner that’s a converted rail car. We have zero of those in New York.

Like our runner-ups, winner Katie Selman of Tampa, FL made us salivate. Scallops in gumbo and polenta, or paired with roasted squash. Florida orange cake and cookies. All yummy.

But seriously, Katie, how do you expect us to look at the following without breaking down sobbing?

1) Reese’s Peanut Butter Banana Bread

2) “The Brewski” cupcake (“moist chocolate cake marinated in Maduro Brown Ale, blended with chocolate ganache filling, topped with whipped Kahlua icing, garnished with chocolate and toffee bits”)

3) “The Pumpkin Bomb” (“similar to an Irish Car Bomb, “ this lethal-sounding beverage combines Cigar City Brewing’s “Good Gourd Imperial Pumpkin Ale, brewed with Ceylon cinnamon, Jamaican all-spice, Zanzibar cloves and nutmeg, with a shot of Baileys Irish Cream and Pinnacle Whip (whipped cream flavored vodka), sprinkled with cinnamon”).

Through our tears, we managed to note how artfully Katie put her images together, a collection ranging from fifties vintage Florida orange juice, to a palm tree scene made entirely of Florida fruit, to funky local street signs. They were diverse, and yet all conveyed the Florida theme, including the UncommonGoods products she chose, like our Rowboat Salad Bowl, our Toast Glasses filled with orange juice, Cantaloupe Bowls, and Spanish Sangria Pitcher.

Join the foodie lovefest by checking out these fabulous Pinterest boards, and help us congratulate winner Katie!