Lard-filled Cookies at Grand Cochon

I saw here that David Varley won Grand Cochon. Among other things, he served some oreo-like cookies, a dessert I've written about before.

It got me wondering if any of his team reads this blog, or if making Oreo-like cookies is just the most obvious thing to do, once you've got a bunch of lard.

I read about Varley and what they did. It sounds like they took it very seriously:

But Varley took every precaution to ensure victory. He prepped most dishes in Washington at the Four Season's restaurant kitchen. The cookie dough was mixed, rolled out and shipped frozen to Aspen with 60 pounds of dry ice. The staff prepared the pork terrine, made with prunes and Armagnac, cooked the meat, sous-vide, for the jungle curry and shipped that as well. All told, Varley said he overnighted more than 400 pounds of pork and other ingredients.

"There's not a lot of room to prep in Aspen. Every chef that matters in the United States was cooking there last weekend," he said. "A lot of guys had more work to do there. We were able to come in and calmly take the victory."

The competition between the chefs reminds me of boars (or sows) fighting for dominance. Just like pigs or wild boar, people want to win. They'll spend a lot if they think it will get them victory.