New Lentil Fest Artist

This Lentil Lady and the National Lentil Festival are proud to announce the winner of the 2012 Poster Art Contest! Jacqueline Daisley has been selected to provide the stunning art that will be on our 2012 National Lentil Festival Poster. This highly anticipated piece of art will be under wraps until next spring. We will display the art for the first time at our annual Poster Unveiling and Wine vs Brew Tasting, held at Palouse Falls Brewing Company.

Although it's hard to believe, it is time to start planning next year's festival. Making changes to provide a better experience for all is top priority for the next 9 months. Stay tuned for up and coming tidbits!

It's Poster Art Time!

A call to artists!$1500. prize awarded to winning art. If you would like to submit art to be considered for the 2012 National Lentil Festival Poster, drop off your art to the Pullman Chamber of Commerce Office, 415 N Grand Ave before November 4th. Be sure to include your contact information.

Your art should look the way you would expect it to appear on the poster, but no need to worry about lettering. The graphic designer can handle that. The art the is selected becomes the property of the National Lentil Festival. All other art will be returned.
Good luck!

Lentil Fest is a Week Away!

Hello Lentil Lovers (or is it Lentil Heads?) Just a week from Lentil Fest and things are moving quickly. Television personalities at Q6 will get to sample two of the finalists in the Legendary Lentil Cook-Off this Saturday, August 13. Be sure and tune in at 9:40 am. And let's see...fabulous entertainment is booked - check, great gobs of lentil chili will be made - check, the Lentil Express is warmed up and ready to lead a wonderful Grand Parade - check, Beer Garden is ready to pour - check. And Tase T. Lentil is ready to celebrate! A great weekend awaits... see you next week!

Six Finalists away from a Winner!

The 2011 Preliminary Legendary Lentil Cook-Off was a success. Our wonderful volunteers prepared 50 lentil dishes to be tasted and scored by a panel of 25 judges. The top 6 finalists are in no particular order:

• Mango Lentil Chili submitted by Cindie Hards of Jupiter, Florida
• Caramel Lentil Brownies Sprinkled with Sea Salt submitted by Joni Hilton of Rocklin, CA
• Bangali Dal submitted by Nipa Reza and Saeed Alam of Dielsdorf, Switzerland
• Mediterranean Summer Lentil Salad submitted by Elizabeth Koseyan of North Hills, CA
• Magical Mayan Salad submitted by Jane Bacher of Robertsdale, Alabama
• Easy Campfire "Can Do" Lentil Chili submitted by Mary Louise Lever of Rome, Georgia

The competition was fierce, the judges took it seriously. Even our "I Hate Lentils!" judge, Bill Weed, was convinced that lentil dishes could be palatable. His choice for disguising the little legume was Lentil Love Sticky Toffee Pudding submitted by Helen Fields of Springtown, Texas.
Although he admits with enough chocolate, any lentil can be effectively hidden!

400 tastings of the top six recipes will be prepared and served to festival goers on August 20th. A grand prize of $1000 will be given to the favorite. Best wishes to all!

And the winner is......

This Lentil Lady is psyched for the Legendary Lentil Cook-Off Prelim tomorrow! 118 great recipes were narrowed down to 50 by 3 of our local chefs. And thanks go out to our 50 wonderful volunteer cooks, some of whom I saw tonight at Dissmore's IGA, one of our Cook-Off sponsors, as they were picking up last minute ingredients. These top 50 recipes will be presented before 23 select judges for tasting tomorrow. These judges represent all things lentil including, Bill Weed, our official "I Hate Lentils!" judge. And I have to say the small pre-taste that we had today was fabulous! I can speak from experience that these judges will be hard pressed to make a decision tomorrow. May the best cook win!

A Record Breaking Cook-Off Year!

This Lentil Lady has a bushel of thanks to offer everyone who entered the 2011 Legendary Lentil Cook-Off! 118 luscious lentil recipes have come in from 32 different states, up from 20 states last year! (But not all 50 --we will try again next year. Get with it Alaska!) I was pleased to see an entry from Red Lion, Pennsylvania come in. The lovely women I spoke to personally on the phone decided on a lentil salad. She had never cooked lentils before. Way to go! And I am humbled by another first - we got an entry from Switzerland! This was a round about way to get an entry. Seems this cook gets visits regularly from a local resident and has cooked our local Palouse lentils many times. (They receive them as gifts!) After some encouragement they entered this year and through the miracle of computers, they got the entry here by the deadline. I am told a 'snail mail' copy is on the way, complete with Swiss postage, just to be official. I plan to frame that entry!
So my heartfelt thanks go out to all who entered and I wish you the best of luck. These 118 entries will be narrowed down to 50, and those will be cooked and tasted on July 21st to narrow it down to 6. A difficult job indeed! Then the 6 will be prepared and presented for tasting to our Festival Goers on August 20th and we will have a winner! Whew! A National Lentil Festival Cook Book, with a fresh new look, will be available soon. Stay tuned...

Little Old Lady From Pa....

This Lentil Lady had a chance to chat with a lovely little old lady - not from Pasadena but from Pennsylvania this past week. Seems she saw an article in their local paper about our Legendary Lentil Cook Off, and purchased some lentils a few weeks ago. This is the very first time she has ever cooked lentils, but she has been working up some recipes to enter into our contest. Her conversation with me was to try to narrow it down to the required limit of 1 recipe per person. Although I am not at liberty to sway an entrant one way or the other, our short phone visit reminded me that I had never even SEEN a lentil until I moved to Pullman, Washington 22 years ago. And I certainly had never cooked one, but since then I have experimented with many recipes. I have years of National Lentil Festival cookbooks at my disposal, so it's not hard to come up with a winner.
With only a week left to enter our cook-off, this Lentil Lady urges you to send in your recipes quick! After all I need the new recipes from this years cook book for my future endeavors!

We Need Your Lentil Recipes!

The July 1st deadline for the National Lentil Festival Legendary Lentil Cook-Off is approaching, but it's not too late to try and win the $1000.00 grand prize! Our goal is to get entries from all 50 states and you can help. Know a great lentil recipe? Know someone who may know a great lentil recipe? Lentils are an amazing, nutritious ingredient to add to many dishes, including desserts! We even have an "I Hate Lentils" competition! Our judge, Bill Weed from KQQQ Radio, states firmly that he does NOT like lentils. He will taste any of the recipes where the lentil presence is not visible and name a winner! Points are deducted if this special judge can see, smell, feel or taste the lentils in the recipe. Lentils are simple to prepare and take on the flavors of whatever they are cooked with. Simply rinse to remove any debris, then boil 1 cup lentils in 2 1/5 cups water for 15-20 minutes. There is no need to soak lentils prior to cooking.
Cook-Off recipe's require 1 cup cooked or 1/2 cup raw lentils. Download an application and enter today at http://www.lentilfest.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Cook-Off-Application2.pdf

Poster Unveiled!

What a fabulous event! This Lentil Lady was very impressed at the delicious food and drink that was presented by our local wineries, breweries and restaurants. And did the Barley Boys or Swirl Girls win? It was the Barley Boys, hands down with 57 votes for Palouse Falls Brewing Company and their Summer Whitman Wheat. Now I am not a beer drinker and have to say I personally voted for the wine, but it was a decisive win for the brews!

The food was another story. Winning by just a small margin was Gladish Commercial Kitchen with their Roast Beef Sliders. I understand a close second was the Summer Shrimp by South Fork Public House. With 10 different and fabulous appetizers, it's clear that next year will need more winners!

The Art of Pairing

It's only a day away from the Poster Unveiling and Wine vs Brew Tasting. Guests will have a chance to taste specially prepared appetizers that pair well with a specific beverage. Wine AND beer provide a perfect sensory experience when matched with a food. Just after sampling the taste and aroma of an appetizer, slowly sip the beverage. The ideal combination is obtained when the taste notes harmonize and create an exciting NEW synergy. This elevates the pleasurable tastes of both. For instance, the dark, spicy red chili tastes are a perfect match to the rich red fruit and underlying spiciness of a deep red wine. A terrifically spicy/sweet experience! Are you ready? See you June 9th!

Tasting Tips for the Poster Unveiling

You often see wines described with words like "spicy" or "floral" but this Lentil Lady wanted to know more of what those words really mean.

When you taste your wine, sip slowly. Savor the tingly feeling on your tongue. Inhale as you swallow to get the full effect. Then look for these flavor clues they often list on the back of the label. Descriptors like "vanilla" "butterscotch" "caramel" "smoke" or "nutmeg" indicates the wine has a woodier taste, often acheived by the the type of barrel it is aged in. If newer oak barrels were used in the winemaking process, the wines will often have a hint of vanilla in both the aroma and flavor.

Words like “zesty” “racy” “tangy” suggest a fresher, brighter style, more descriptive of the acidity and fruitiness of the wine.

Take a peek at the alcohol percentage and this will tip you off as to how heavy the wine will feel in your mouth. 10% should feel similar to water, 12-13% can feel like skim milk, 15% or higher will have the body of whole milk.

Stay tuned and we will look into the finer points of brews!

Don't Swallow in Utah!

As things are heating up for the Poster Unveiling & Wine vs Brew Tasting, I thought a little wine tasting etiquette might be good. So after a little research, it was interesting to find that in Utah, wine used at wine tastings MUST NOT BE SWALLOWED! Which poses the problem, where exactly do you put it after some momentary swirling in your mouth. The idea of spitting it into your glass seems just a bit gross, even with rinsing. And I can't speak for you, but no way would this Lentil Lady spit into a bucket in front of people. How gauche!

So I plan to solve that for our guests on June 9th. Here in Pullman Washington it is legal to swallow. So simply rinse your glass, empty it into one of our lovely buckets and move on to the next.
Happy tasting!

Remember this!

"In Wine there is Truth, in Beer there is Strength, in water there is Bacteria." A few fun tidbits to share over a glass:
Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get service, resulting in today's phrase, "Wet you whistle".
We are getting ready for the first ever competition between wine and beer at the Poster Unveiling & Wine vs Brew Tasting, June 9th, 6-8pm at the Holiday Inn. This event, sponsored by Beasley Realty, is pitting our local wineries and breweries together to compete for a coveted trophy. Who will win? Barley Boys or Swirl Girls? Come and find out! 509-334-3565 for reservations.

75 varieties of lentils & they taste all the same...

I've had this said to me a number of times and feel this is actually a benefit of our lovely little legume! Among one of the world's oldest cultivated foods, lentils have the unique property of taking on the flavor of what they are cooked with. This makes them extremely versatile! Which is why the processed food biz is looking at lentils to provide tasty, protein-filled snack chips and crackers. So be sure to add the spices and seasonings, garlic, onions, etc. to your lentils when cooking and you wil find the flavor to be as individual as the recipe!

Sorry for the technical difficulties!

Whew! The Lentil Festival website is now fully functional. It was supposed to go live midnight April 1st, but Lentil Lady here was experiencing technical difficulties and it took a few hours more to sort out. If you see anything else I could fix on the website, drop me a line! Stay tuned for updates about our Poster Unveiling!

2011 National Lentil Festival

Welcome to the Feel Good Family Festival! The 2011 National Lentil Festival will be August 19-20, 2011 in Pullman Washington. A great line up of entertainment has been planned. New additions have been made to make our children's Lentil Land better than ever. Stay tuned for updates - as they happen! Lentil Fest! It will be here before you know it!