Gumbo Cook-off at Ahwatukee Foothills Coffee Plantation, This Sunday

The Arizona Republic reports on a Gumbo Cook-off being held this Sunday:

The Coffee Plantation in Ahwatukee Foothills will be serving something besides java and pastries Sunday.

It will be the site of the Great Gumbo Cook-off, sponsored by a group of former Louisiana residents.

An expected 10 cooks will dish out their best efforts, and the public can vote for first, second and third place.

“It’s competitive,” organizer Tandy Vincent of central Phoenix said. “Generally, gumbo recipes have been handed down generation to generation, and you grow up and that’s the gumbo you know.”

When people from Louisiana gather and have gumbo, she said, people will say, “I like your gumbo, but it’s not as good as mine.”

Vincent, secretary of the Phoenix chapter of the Louisiana State University Alumni Association, said the group is putting on the cookoff to benefit Habitat for Humanity, which helps with the post-Hurricane Katrina rebuilding in New Orleans. Half of the proceeds will go into organizing future fund-raisers.

Todd Marr, manager of the Coffee Plantation on Warner Road, is from Louisiana and is on the mailing list for the alumni association. When he saw the members were looking for a location, he offered the shop.