2017 Generous Associates Campaign Cooking Competition Champions: Williams & Connolly!
Generous Associates Campaign
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Ten law firm teams once again sizzled in the kitchen at CulinAerie during Legal Aid’s 5th Annual Generous Associates Campaign Cooking Competition. Susan Holt, Co-Founder of CulinAerie, graciously hosted the event and emceed the evening, unveiling this year’s secret ingredient: Cherries!

The ten firms participating in the cooking competition were:

Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP
Covington & Burling LLP
Crowell & Moring LLP
Latham & Watkins LLP
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
Steptoe & Johnson LLP
Wilkinson Walsh + Eskovitz LLP
Williams & Connolly LLP
Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP

We are also grateful to our judges this year – Chef Krystal Cripe (Executive Chef of Red Hen), Chef Ben Schramm (Executive Chef of The Pub & The People), and Bonnie Benwick (Deputy Food Editor & Recipe Editor with the Washington Post) – for lending their time and professional palettes to judge the competition.

The teams had 15 minutes to plan and 30 minutes to execute their dish. In the end, Team Williams & Connolly (pictured below with the guest judges) came out on top in the cherry challenge with “the perfect bite.”

Left to right: Susan Holt, Bonnie Benwick, Eli Schlam, Yifan Wang, Tracey Fung, Chef Ben Schramm, Chef Krystal Cripe, and Sean Quinn.

Following in a close second was the team from Orrick and in third place was the talented team from Pillsbury!

Each team presented creative and beautiful-looking dishes. Teams were scored on presentation, unique use of ingredients, overall taste, and teamwork. After animated (but honest) critique from the judges, Team Williams & Connolly was crowned the new champions for their winning dish, which they described as “a cherry, bacon, and goat cheese tart with a pistachio, dried cherry and rosemary crumble and a reduced brandied cherry sauce.”

Winning dish by Williams & Connolly.

The team from Orrick placed second with a “prosciutto and goat cheese bruschetta with a cherry/balsamic sauce (reduction made with cherry brandy, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, fresh cherries, and sautéed red onions) and topped with toasted walnuts and arugula.”

Team Orrick with their 2nd place dish.

Finishing third, was Pillsbury, which served up the “Cherry Von Brussels. A spoonful of parmesan crisp topped with sautéed Brussel sprouts and bacon, topped with freshly made crème fraiche and a cherry balsamic reduction, with sprinkles of dried cherries and toasted pecans, accompanied by a dollop of cherry guacamole.”

3rd place team Pillsbury.

All of us at Legal Aid wish to express our profound gratitude once again to CulinAerie’s Susan Holt, whose willingness to donate her time, space, cooking equipment and food items for the event for a fifth year in a row reflect her truly generous spirit. We also continue to be incredibly thankful to all of our Generous Associates Campaign participating law firms which together raised a record-smashing $1.79 million in this year’s Generous Associates Campaign!

Below are more photos from the evening:

 

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