Cooking as a Design Challenge
Inspired by the Food Network's televised competitions, I decided to start my own cooking spin-off: Karen's Iron Chef Adventures. For each challenge, a family friend or neighbor will give me a secret ingredient at noon. From there, I will have until 6 pm to prepare a 4-course meal that showcases the ingredient. Open panty, closed book, and $8 shopping money per judge, the tight constraints help push my cooking to new levels.
Iron Chef Adventures transform this long-time hobby into an exercise in design thinking that encourages brainstorming, rapid prototyping, and presentation skills and embody the mottos of Stanford's d.school design philosophy such as "fail fast and fail early," "go for wild ideas," and "learn by doing" to achieve innovative results.
Stanford Cardinal Cookoff
2010 Winner
The Challenge: 67 minutes, 2 secret ingredients, limited equipment, prepared live at Wilbur Dining Hall with limited
