Cookie Monsters

Being chosen to be 1 of 20 competitors for SF FoodWars had its ups and downs. I basked in the glow of being chosen, but also had to talk myself down from at least 4 mental breakdowns in the process. For once, I felt like I had prepared myself by testing several recipes 2 weeks ahead of time. My choice was solid, and my 'focus group' of testers stroked my confidence. But when push comes to shove - baking 200 cookies and the preparing the correct amount of caramel topping was downright painful.
Starting on Friday night I began the bake-bonanza. The caramel alone took me a day and a half to perfect. I am certain there will soon be a day where I have to look my landlord in the eye and act surprised and horrified that my sink is clogged. Saturday morning I hit the test kitchen to start the cookie dough. I calculated at least 4 batches of dough to yield the right amount of cookies. The dough had to chill in the fridge for 2 hours, so this gave me some time to work on my signage and think about my outfit. 2 hours later and anything w/ sequins on it removed from my closet the dough was ready. To accommodate the NJ shaped cookie cutter I had to roll out the dough to 2 inches thick. 200 cookies later I can barley move my arms and have the strangest case of carpal tunnel known to man. Not to mention the permanent imprint of backwards New Jersey on my palm.
Sequins, blue eyeshadow and extensions in - I was ready to pump fists on over to Mighty to bring the noise and my Throwing Shapes cookies in all their caramel glory. Despite my postage stamp size space, I was proud of the display and the way the cookies were presented. That is, until they let in 250 ravenous cookie monsters who were clawing and fighting to stuff their faces with cookies! It was insane, I don't think people were even swallowing the previous cookie, before shoving mine into their gobs. And at one point, I thought one guy was going to drink directly out of the gallon of milk I had thoughtfully added to my repertoire. In the blink of an eye, my perfect display was destroyed and I was literally throwing tastes at people.
I didn't win. But that was no surprise, I was Team #10 and I'm convinced everyone was too high off the previous competitors to fairly judge my chocolatey, caramely goodness. The best part of the day was sitting down on my sofa, turning on Rescue Me and not having a cookie in sight.