Posted by The Maui News, HI on May 30, 2009 at 11:29:00:
Mauian wins burger contest
By BRIAN PERRY, City Editor
"Mauian wins burger contest"
Kihei resident Kristine Snyder presents her “Hawaii Da Kine Burger” to Build a Better Burger head judge James McNair during a competition in Napa, Calif., in September.
WAILUKU - As a professional musician, Kristine Snyder knows the importance of rehearsal, playing her harp over and over again to bring sweet music to people attending island weddings or listening to the Maui Symphony.
"I understand what practice does," she said Friday. "You have to practice to perform under pressure."
Last year, the 48-year-old Kihei resident's dedication paid off in the Build a Better Burger National Recipe Contest, sponsored by Sutter Home Winery in Napa Valley, Calif., and taped for a national TV audience by the Food Network.
Snyder learned in September, only two weeks before the contest, that she was a finalist. And, in that time, she made and prepared her award-winning burger recipe at least 10 times, with her husband, Dan, as her guinea pig. She also borrowed three different grills from friends to practice on cooking surfaces with varying temperatures and different hot and cool spots.
Her winning concoction was "Hawaii Da Kine Burgers with Sweet-Chili Glaze, Ginger-Goat Cheese Spread and Hot Watercress Salad." She took home the contest's $50,000 grand prize and $2,500 for the People's Choice award. With her husband, she also was flown to New York City for an interview and burger cooking demonstration on NBC's "Today" show.
At 5 p.m. Sunday, her experience will be televised on cable Channels 60 and 1321. (The program will be repeated at midnight Monday and 4 p.m. Wednesday.)
Viewers won't get the full flavor of the event unless they watch it in a sauna, as thermometers were hitting 96 degrees in Napa on the day of the contest, she said. Another contestant finished preparing her burgers, but with grill temperatures nearing 450 degrees, she succumbed to dehydration and had to be taken to a hospital to recover.
"I was so soaked. I wanted to take a shower," Snyder said. "My hair was soaking wet from sweat. The poor cameraman was dying."
Snyder said she draws her cooking inspiration from Pacific rim flavors, saying her burgers are "all about Hawaii."
"Everybody loves that Hawaii flavor," she said.
In the Build a Better Burger competition, Snyder beat out competitors from New York, Minnesota, Louisiana and elsewhere in the Southeast. To be invited to the contest in Napa, she submitted her burger recipe to Sutter Home Winery.
Competing in the beef division, Snyder was required to have her burger patties be at least 75 percent beef. The remaining portion of her patties was made up of Portuguese sausage, sweet Maui onions, papaya (used as a tenderizer) and Asian spices.
Snyder said Maui onions used in her recipe "lack that serious onion taste" and are "very mild and sweet." Her dish also had a hot watercress salad and a ginger-goat cheese spread.
She began cooking as a hobby when she joined a cooking group in Seattle before she moved to Maui in 1998. Her first cooking contest win was in a chili cook-off at Hope Chapel in Kihei that year. Later, she won cooking competitions at the Maui Onion Festival for four years in a row, she said.
She approached cooking as a challenge to create something, then she started winning competitions and found herself "absolutely addicted."
"It's very exciting, and it can be quite a bit of money," she said.
Over 10 years, she has won cash prizes amounting to $170,000, with the recent burger contest's $50,000 grand prize being the most money she's won in a single competition.
Timing is one of the keys to winning cooking competitions, she said, particularly with the Build a Better Burger contest when her dish needed to be served to a panel of judges at an exact time.
"That was extremely stressful," she said. "You want the burger to be hot."
She also credited her success to Asian flavorings in her burgers, including Portuguese sausage and Thai sweet chili sauce. Snyder said she wanted the judges to taste something sweet and savory with a crunchy texture brought by the onions and watercress.
"This has to be something exotic," she said, adding that judges will eat only one or two bites. "You want that first bite to go, 'Wow!'"
The contest judges were celebrities, themselves, she said, including head judge James McNair, author of dozens of cookbooks and a member of Bon Appetit magazine's, "Who's Who in American Barbecue."
Snyder said she found the expertise on the judging panel "very intimidating."
"You're cooking for somebody who really knows how to cook," she said. "It's out of my comfort zone, for sure."
But she said she was pleasantly surprised at the judges' warm reception of her burgers.
"They loved it," she said. "I was absolutely shocked."
Snyder said she might use her prize money to travel to New Orleans or Orlando, Fla., to visit Disney World.
But for now, "with today's economy, I put it in the bank," she said.
* Brian Perry can be reached at citydesk@mauinews.com.
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