Abalone Cook Festival & Cook-off was a Huge Success

Thank you, Erin McBride, who persevered to ensure the continuity of the Abalone Cook-off, for years to come.

Erin teamed up with Ocean Rose Seafood to deliver farm raised abalone to Fort Bragg,s Noyo Harbor South in time for, The Abalone Cooks Festival and Cook-off! Ocean Rose Seafoods raise their abalone at The Abalone Farm, in Cayucos California. Teaming past champion cooks and a deliverable source of ingredients created a different atmosphere from past cook-offs. Even though there was an increase in cleaning times, due to the size difference between wild and farmed abalone, missing was the weather and wave watch that characterized all previous cook-offs. This reduced the stress around diving and hunting for the main ingredient. Check in was streamlined to picking up your packet and farmed abalone the day before.
Past Abalone Cook-offs had the dubious distinction of being the only cooking competition where the contestants had to enter a foreign environment, risk their lives diving in the ocean, capture their game, dress it, custom prepare it, Cook it and serve 400 judges, and clean up, all on the same day!
The winning recipe was, once again, a “Bread and Fry” recipe.