Kyle Fire Department Deputy Chief Rick Beaman working along side Buda Fire Department’s Lt. Dan Hernandez, Captain Craig Odell, and Senior Paramedic John Mills in the H-E-B Kyle Plus High Noon Firefighter Throw Down on Sunday. The Buda team took top honors for their dishes, including Spam fajitas. Not shown: Kyle volunteer firefighter Ethan Schultz. (Photo by Lincoln Ramirez)
by KIM HILSENBECK
The Buda Fire Department can claim the title of best bunch of firefighting cooks in this part of Hays County, at least for the next year. Firefighters from Buda competed against the Kyle Fire Department at the H-E-B High Noon Cook-off Challenge on May 27. The three-round competition was loosely based on the Food Network’s popular cooking show, “Chopped.” Each team had three members and Chef Byron Pope, who heads up the Cooking Connection at the H-E-B Kyle Plus location, gave each team a mystery basket of ingredients and a time limit. Judges then decided which team had to “chop” one member before the next round. Kyle won round 1, but Buda took the next two rounds, leaving Kyle with no one left standing. Judges Jennifer Forkey, Christy Stotts and Samantha Ringland, all from Kyle, said they were not biased about judging. Stotts said, “It’s all about the food.” The Kyle Fire Department served up bacon wrapped shrimp in round 1, honey ginger glazed shrimp lotus in round 2 and Funyun breaded Spam on saffron rice with tomato cucumber salad. But the judges went for the Spam fajitas.
