Last weekend, I had so much fun getting out of the city to judge the Cadillac Culinary Challenge!

Picture Padma Lakshmi, and then paste on some newly-blonde hair, and you basically have my afternoon.  Two amazing chefs created dishes based around a totally delicious ingredient (summer heirloom tomatoes) and I had the truly excellent job of judging which one was the winner!

Cadillac had the fun idea of pitting a national chef against a local chef for weekend cook-offs around various ingredients across the country (check out their website for future dates and locations ^[1]), and I was so excited when they asked me to be a part of it!

On the day I judged, Chef Geoffrey Zakarian made an incredible summer tomato salad in a basil-seed vinaigrette with stracciatella, and Chef Cornelius Gallagher made a warm tomato salad in a pine nut pesto with freshly toasted croutons and Crescenza cheese.

Both were seriously incredible, as you can probably tell from the pictures!  It was almost impossible to pick a winner, and I can’t wait to recreate both of them at home.

Many thanks to Cadillac for hosting me for the day, and for this fun opportunity!

I’m wearing: Zara dress (last seen here ^[2]), Michael Kors watch, gifted Guess heels.