Note: The 2010 scavenger hunt is over (a concluding post will come soon) and we got first place out of 121 teams! This is a series explaining the background and thinking of our missions of the SF Street Food Scavenger Hunt 2010!

Mission: It’s time to host a dinner party, but not just with YOUR friends, but with another team playing the game. You will have to hunt down a secret ingredient and make a dish with it to be shared with the other team at a dinner party in a location of your choice.

In a dinner party planned in less than 48 hours….

Secondly, what is the secret ingredient?

I immediately spammed my team with the riddle:
1. Currently in-season
2. Between 35 and 40 calories
3. The “unluckiest” colony.

And fortunately, Jeff T. knew the answer immediately. Peach.

Perfect. I already had planned a tomato and peach salad inspired by Mark Bittman’s 101 Simple Salads. But that seemed too simple. Perhaps something that represented our namesake? A deep fried twinkie (with my newly acquired fryer from my parents) certainly? With some kind of peach topping—grilled?

A healthy and unhealthy contrast? Yes!

I sent out an invite to the LMS team and my team.

To a sinking realization, the number of people attending from LMS was low. So low. The main blog owner was out of town. Unknowingly, that weekend was a special food event taking up most people’s time. I braced myself for the worst…and three hours before the dinner—I got a call that only one person could make it. Ok, that works. I rushed home and started the meal preparation. Then halfway through…no! He called to say that he wasn’t sure—he was tired—could we reschedule to say another weekend?

I understood that wariness of attending an event, super-exhausted. But no! This was the last weekend before the deadline. I could do a weekday, but the rest of my team couldn’t…and me rushing back by 7 pm to prepare a feast was almost impossible. Could you come for 10 minutes? I asked. Then I felt guilty as he was coming all the way from Berkeley. Whatever you want to do, but I promise you a feast and good times.

He did make it And it was a feast. And more than good times…it was incredible.

Not only did I manage to get nearly my entire menu, but we managed not to bore out honored guest to death.

We had:

cheese plate

corn casserole

braised whole chicken

tomato and peach salad

gazpacho

guest provided bread

then for dessert…deep fried twinkies with grilled peachs

and the game…What else can we fry?!

Notable moments:

Meeting us meek asians…is really not that intimidating

Or at least having Chris around makes everything easy, because he relates to everyone

No matter what we did, there’s no way to make a photo with twinkies and halved peaches NOT inappropriate

It was the first time that I actually finished cooking “on time” so that I could actually eat with people

My rice cooker from my parents does not work

If you put cream cheese on a plate, most people will ask about it, especially wondering if it’s a creamy version that they never had before.

Goat cheese fully packaged and sealed is still good more than a year later

Peaches are a great ingredient

Fried Coke is good

Grapes dipped into batter and fried is incredible

The same with maraschino cherries

And deep fried twinkies never cease to amaze everyone who touches it

A good question: do vegetarians eat twinkies?