When Brian Malarkey was trying out to be a contestant on Bravo’s favorite TV show, “Top Chef,” I can guess that he never imagined that one day soon, he would be presiding over a Manischewitz cook-off.
But there he was today at a San Francisco Hilton on the border of Chinatown, looking dapper in a pin-striped suit rather than his chef whites, acting as emcee for the Simply Manischewitz regional semi-finals. This is the second year of the contest.

With some of my regular clients on vacation, I didn’t have anything in particular to do today. So when I heard about the Manischewitz cook-off, I thought, “I’m into food. I’m into Jews. Why the hell not?”

As it began at 11:00 a.m. on a Thursday, the number of people I could rope into going with me was miniscule. I called Deb, a Jewish foodie friend of mine who is not working right now.

“I am drawn by some weird curiosity. Plus, they are offering a free, kosher lunch. I only take you to the best places,” I told her.

She graciously accepted.

It is hard to fully describe the scene and do it justice. First of all, except for the contestants and the judges, Deb and I were among the few people there under 75. We overheard that a huge group had been bussed in from a local suburban JCC. I don’t know if it was the promise of a free kosher lunch or what, but at least 200 people showed up and there weren’t nearly enough tuna and egg salad wraps.

A riot almost broke out in the food line, with one woman getting angry at me for allowing others to push in front of the line. When said others who are cutting ahead of me are more than twice my age, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to make a fuss.

It took awhile for the competition to get underway, especially since first, we had to be told that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was unable to come, but he had declared today, December 20, “Simply Manischewitz Cook-Off Day” in San Francisco.

While Deb and I were eating our lunch, one of the judges who was also a food columnist for an Orange County newspaper approached us under the guise of interviewing us for an article. After asking me a few perfunctory questions, she pressed a postcard into my hand promoting her new Jewish cookbook. I saw her doing that to everyone with whom she spoke.

Now, although I am a natural foods chef who specializes in cooking healthy food for my clients, I am known to occasionally break the rules on holidays. But this one recipe on the back of her postcard nearly gave me a heart attack. Her kugel recipe called for 3 cups of heavy cream, a can of sliced peaches in heavy syrup, and a can of sliced pears in heavy syrup. You know I will be running to make that one for my clients.
Apparently 2000 people sent in recipes for the western region, and these nine were selected to be in the semi-finals. Two other semi-final competitions already took place in Chicago and Philadelphia, and the two winners from each will now compete in New York City in February for the grand-prize of a brand-new kitchen from General Electric, some Manischewitz products, and some cash.

The rules of the competition are pretty simple: Contestants had to create an original recipe using any of Manischewitz’ products. (I should add here that I had no idea they had so many. Of course I knew the obvious, like matzo ball mix and gefilte fish, but who knew that they had their own balsamic vinegar and olive oil, too.) It had to have eight ingredients or less, not including salt, pepper and water. It had to be fairly easy to make, but with eight or less ingredients, those two are mutually exclusive. And it had to be kosher.

When I spoke briefly with Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz, administrative rabbi of R.A.B. Foods, which owns the Manischewitz brand, he told me that this year one contestant entered a “kosher turkey with kosher cheese” recipe. But last year was even better: one contestant entered pork.

If I had to hazard a guess, only a third of the nine contestants were Jewish (going by my own highly-unscientific Jewdar) and last year’s contest winner was not — that’s her in the accompanying photo. One contestant admitted to the judges that he had to do research before developing his recipe, so as to know what was allowed for it to be kosher. And one contestant, who entered Lamb Kabobs with an Apricot-Hoisin Glaze, found herself scrambling at the last minute because on their shopping trip, the presiding rabbis couldn’t find hoisin sauce that was kosher. She chose to substitute black bean sauce, which is nowhere near the same thing.

What I found fascinating was how this event was “certified at the highest level of Kashrus,” according to David Rossi, VP of marketing for Manischewitz, in his introduction, and yet the judges could judge all the dishes, whether they be dairy, parve, or meat.
While I do not keep kosher myself, I always believed that people must wait six hours after eating meat to eat dairy, and three after dairy to eat meat.

When I asked Horowitz about this, who definitely looked the part in his long black coat and long grey beard, he explained to me that the room had been set up with the dairy dish first, then several parve dishes, and the meat dishes last. Some of the judges were Jewish, he explained, and given the Manischewitz brand, this competition was going to be 100 percent kosher.

One only had to do a quick rinse of the mouth after eating dairy before eating meat because the body digests dairy so much sooner. The only exception he said was Parmesan cheese, because it was aged, and so any recipe with Parmesan cheese was disqualified.
This was news to me, but given his title and what he was doing there, I had to believe him. Though I did not see a single judge do the mouth swish between the milchig and fleishig dishes.

Contestants had an hour to prepare their dishes, with each contestant having their own GE stove behind them at their cook station. There was none of the running around and craziness that one sees on “Top Chef,” though one contestant who made a “Crusted White Fish” out of the jarred Gefilte variety, led everyone in the ballroom in a “Gefilte Fish” chant.

There was a certain zany humor throughout, like when San Francisco contestant Ryan Schwartz, a 22-year-old self-taught cook, introduced his “Easy Matzo Ball Dumplings” to the judges, saying “After 5,000 years, I thought Jewish food and Chinese food should merge.” His dumplings are flavored with soy sauce and are stuffed with vegetables.
Evan Levy of Danville, another of the local contestants, had a fan club with him, holding signs like “Evan puts the man in Manischewitz.”

The judges seemed to agree. Levy was one of the winners, with his Southwestern Potato Kugel, as was Julie Hession from Las Vegas, who made a Beef Tenderloin with Marsala Mushroom Sauce. Both are now off to New York for the finals.
A few final observations: while Brian Malarkey had a lot of personality on “Top Chef,” always selling his food to the judges, the same cannot be said for his emcee-ing skills. Not only did he mispronounce nearly every contestant and judge’s name numerous times, but he also kept mispronouncing Hoisin Sauce.

I know what Hoisin Sauce is. My friend Deb knew what it is. He’s an executive chef at a restaurant and he doesn’t know what it is?

And last: while most of the people in the audience were elderly Jews, it seemed the location of the hotel being near Chinatown brought quite a large number of other people in as well, perhaps who were in the hotel for another event, or who know to come to hotels for events where they can get free food.

Since the crowd was way larger than anticipated, and not everyone had gotten their promised free lunch, once the judging was over, audience members practically drove themselves into a frenzy to try the contestants’ creations. While some of the recipes did indeed look good (despite my disdain of overly-processed products), I wasn’t going to fight anyone to try them. (All the semi-finalists’ recipes can be found on Manischewitz’s web site.)

And each contestant only made so much. After the serving dishes were scraped clean, I saw people picking at whatever was left.

Probably the strangest image I have of the day is a man getting excited that his wife got away with one raw carrot left unused by a contestant, and another woman stuffing a whole handful of cilantro into her mouth.