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By Dave Boyce
Almanac Staff Writer

Had it been fluent in the banter of the kitchen, a fly on the wall of Woodside resident Leslie Ballinger's kitchen would have remarked on the collegiality among the chef-like humans arrayed around the free-standing counter, their heads bent and their hands engaged as they quietly discussed meal preparation.

Such subdued tones would have bewildered the fly. This was a cooking competition! Where was the elbowing? Why were sauce pots not being hoarded? Instead, a kind of grace prevailed among the two men and four women teamed three-on-three to vie for the good opinions of 11 guests -- five couples plus one -- who had gathered on Friday, Sept. 18, for a singular meal at two tables set up in Ms. Ballinger's living room.

On the evening's menu: appetizers consisting of two varieties of empanada and three of bruschetta; an entree of barbecued jerk chicken with coconut rice and a Middle Eastern salad; an entree of pan-fried herbed salmon fillet with mashed potatoes, baby carrots and steamed summer squash; plus luxurious desserts.

Easy to say, but try making it when your day job involves not cuisine, but education, and your expectant diners have paid $335 each.

They pulled it off in style, and Woodside High School was $3,500 richer: The meal had been bid for and purchased at the annual Woodside High School Foundation auction. The cook-off pitted high school administrators against teachers.

The guests enjoyed an extraordinary meal -- this reporter can vouch for that -- and the chefs earned rewards that were less tangible, as is often the case with educators.

Whip those potatoes
The administrative team of Woodside High School Principal David Reilly, his wife Sandy Reilly, and Instructional Vice Principal Diane Mazzei had an arguably easier time of it preparing bruschetta than their opponents had with their empanadas, though both are peasant-style dishes.

Bruschetta is as simple as a baguette sliced, toasted, blessed with olive oil and/or garlic, and finished with a combination of toppings, which is where the inspiration comes in.

The toppings experienced that night were prosciutto and fig on cream cheese; brie with apple slices; and gorgonzola and honey, a combination that defies both explanation and adequate superlatives.

The excellent salmon and mashed potatoes betrayed nothing of the urgent machinations behind their debut on the plate.

Unknown to Mr. Reilly until he unwrapped it, the salmon had bones left in. Mr. Reilly and his wife Sandy, with three-month old Kai sleeping in her front-loaded papoose, spent about 20 minutes searching for and removing the fine bones with a borrowed pair of needlenose pliers.

As for the potatoes, Mr. Reilly and Ms. Mazzei did succeed in piping them into decorative beds for the salmon but, being new to it and using makeshift plastic piping bags, they split one bag after another as lumps blocked the nozzle.

"Those mashed potatoes have to be really finely whipped (to remove even) the slightest lump," Mr. Reilly said in an interview.

Ms. Mazzei tied baby carrots in bundles with room-temperature but uncooperative green onion stems.

The dessert of cream-filled puff pastries appeared to go off without a hitch once the team arrived at a way to dust them with powdered sugar.

The evening, Ms. Mazzei said, was "quite an experience" and "fun." The biggest challenge, she said, was keeping food hot after the guests delayed their seating time.

Training is key
The empanada, a baked filled pastry, is lovely to look at, inviting to hold, and a pleasure to eat, particularly on this evening with a choice of meat-filled and vegetarian.

Making an empanada is easy if, like Woodside math teacher Josh Rubin, you've had eight years of occasional practice under the eye of an aunt who's an old hand at it.

"I get a lot of training every year," he said in an interview. "The problem is that you can never make enough."

In the kitchen that night, he went over the basics with his team, English teachers Nicole Taylor and Jessica Cuillier.

By tradition, the empanada filling is recognized by the crimp pattern. Making unique and consistent crimped edges "has taken a lot of time to master," Mr. Rubin noted to the assembled guests after dinner.

Ms. Cuillier, whose teaching and cooking careers are just starting, said she used the evening to learn by watching.

The teachers' dessert, Part 1, was creme brulee. Mr. Rubin dusted the tops of the custard with sugar, poured off the excess and gently torched the remaining crystals to brown perfection. Or not.

The dessert was in need of a "buttery fat residue," one guest with a French accent noted, then added, "It's a very hard thing to do."

The criticism was welcome. "It's not every day that you hear 'No, it wasn't that great,'" Mr. Rubin told The Almanac lightheartedly. "Here I've been thinking that (my creme brulee) was the best thing since sliced bread."

Dessert, Part 2, was a peerless chocolate torte made with raspberry liqueur, whipped cream and berries, Ms. Taylor's specialty. "Oh, it's so good," she said in an interview. She is the real deal, having entered dessert competitions and won, she said.

The evening's master of ceremonies, PTSA President Brian Murphy, called the torte "a chocolate cake that can make a pregnant woman deliver."

The teachers missed one beat when raw rice mistakenly went into a pan containing cooking oil, but a rinse of the rice put things back on track.