Jurrjens Honored

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-Chef Jawroldy Jurrjens has been honored for helping Feast Fest break a scoring record after he helped the event ward of a point docking of 0.1 to 0.3.

If he had come into the kitchen a second later, the thirty-second deadline for having less than 20 chefs on the floor would have been violated resulting in a major points docking.
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Friday is Official Feast Fest Day of Nothing

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-After ten months of hard work and prep, Feast Fest chefs will get their rest Friday, as they have no events assigned to them or even optionally set up for them. There will be several events for fans in the evening hours of Friday.

Saturday night will see the Official Feast Fest After Party from 9 p.m. through the wee hours of the morning. Guests are invited but only if they procure a special wristband needed for entry into the After Party.

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Accident in Kitchen During Cleanup Process

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-An overhead scoreboard fell and smashed seven cooking stations during cleanup from Feast Fest 2011 Thursday.

The scoreboard was being unscrewed from the wall as is procedure, but the cleanup workers doing this did not follow a rule stating to wait until all the excess cooking stations had been removed before removing the scoreboard.

The 6'x10' smashed eight cooking stations to oblivion. Miraculously and fortunately, no one was injured.

The incident is being investigated and the debris from it cleaned up.

The incident occurred about 10:20 p.m. Thursday. It caused a huge crash noise audible in the Dining Hall, garnering gasps and stirs from remaining fans and chefs.

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Point Docking Could Have Drastically Changed FF Outcome

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-Feast Fest chefs are thanking Jawroldy Jurrjens for the 99.0 score at Feast Fest 2011 after he prevented a points docking by bursting into the Kitchen just before the thirty-second deadline Thursday when Feast Fest accidentally went under a requirement that there be at least 20 chefs on the floor at any given time.

Jurrjens entered the floor mere milliseconds before the thirty-second deadline, barely exempting Feast Fest from a points docking.

The docking was exempted when it was found that Jurrjens had entered 0.4 seconds before the deadline.

If this had not occurred, there could have been a point docking of 0.1 or as much as 0.3, which would have prevented FF from reaching its record-breaking 99 mark.

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Points Don't Matter As Much: Mason Duo Takes MVC

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-Jumpin' Jimmy had 78, Lynn 76, but the Mason Duo, with NCA point values over the event of 64 and 53 respectively, were the ones taking home the Most Valuable Chef award Thursday.

Avi and McAllister finished third and second but it was the particular culinary spirit of the Mason Duo and their resilience through a Feast Fest strewn with difficulties and mishaps that brought home to them the MVC when everything was said and done.

It marks the first time since 2008 that an MVC winner has not had the most points. In 2009, the Mason Duo split values of 70 and 68, leading the pack, and won, and Jim McAllister led and won the MVC in 2010.

In 2008, Lynn Avi and Lindbergh Merrssff shared the MVC. Avi led with 71 points but Lindy only had 26.

"Points were expected to factor in more with the rehashed formula the critics had for figuring the MVC, but the Mason Duo still pulled through," said Alan Bryn, an analyst.

The lowest point value for an MVC chef came for Johnny Stevenson. When he won MVC in 2005, he had only racked up 24 NCA points over the course of his performance.




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Merrssff "Ecstatic" to Receive Ceremonial Turkey, "Elated" at 99 Score

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-A Feast Fest fixture for so many years, Lindbergh Merrssff said he was "elated" that the chefs drove home a record 99.0 score even though he was no longer on the team. In addition, the 75-year-old former Feast Fest called himself "ecstatic" about being the recipient of the Ceremonial Turkey prepared by the Mason Duo. "They did an absolutely exceptional job, as did every chef here, and to have seen them reach 99? Unbelievable. I'm just so happy for everybody involved in every way."

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Source: Galen-Ames "wanted FF to score low," booed 99.0 score announcement

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-Former FF chef Brianna Galen-Ames reacted sorely and immaturely at her first Feast Fest after leaving the event in 2010, apparently "wanting FF to score low", and then booing the announcement of the official NCA score for Feast Fest 2011 being 99.0, the highest ever. Fortunately, the roar at the announcement was loud enough to drown out this impolite gesture.

"The way Ms. Galen-Ames acted today, all because of her disagreements with Feast Fest Events, Inc., was completely without bounds," said William Vanderbilt. "As owner of this event, this has been the straw to break the camel's back. I will not recommend re-signing of Galen-Ames to a deal for 2012 if she is going to bring to the event such dirty consciences and ruddy morals."

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99.0! 2011 Feast Fest is highest-rated ever, slipping over 2008 score by 0.1; Mason Duo Win Dual MVCs

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-DigIn came at an early 6:49 p.m. and was just one of many factors leading to a fantastical year as Feast Fest 2011 beat the previous record of 2008 by 0.1.

The Mason Duo shared co-MVCs, their fourth, beating out Jim McAllister by one vote. Had McAllister won MVC, he would have cradled his fifth.

Individual turkey scores rocketed to 99.8, the best individual turkey score and the best individual score for any food in event history. 99.4 marks came forth for the gravy, finally breaking its long tradition of critica ignorata, and the third best score was for sweet potatoes (a 99.2 mark). The worst score that came forward was for peas (94.6), again continuing a recent streak of downturning. The phenomenal results of other foods, however, were too much to keep the peas from sabotaging the unbelievable 99 rating.

"We'll have to say '100's the goal' now!" Jim McAllister commented.

The first 99 score could mark the end of a long era of 98s: before 2011, five of the last six Fests had scores somewhere in the 98s. The exception was 2007, which had a score of 97.3.

The 99 mark also ends a series of "odd-year-curses". For example, scores in general and in particular mashed potato and turkey scores suffered in odd-numbered years, but for unknown reasons.

Mashed potatoes did follow a different formula that created a sticky, heavy consistency but chefs rewarped the recipe so that the mashed potatoes tasted little different from the way they did in previous years.



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Dumas "Performing Well"

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-Peter Dumas is "performing well" in spite of his tailbone fracture injury he suffered Tuesday. He has suffered no major collisions and no further damage to his tailbone area, and he has not been suffering pain with any movements. He has been able to move at more or less the same speedy pace he would normally harbor.

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6:00 Update

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-At 6, the projected NCA score for Feast Fest is 97.5 and Jim McAllister leads in points with 71. Lynn Avi has 70. McAllister and Avi have been battling for the points lead all day long, but Avi has only tied, not yet led, McAllister in points.

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Gravy Garners Better Marks Among Critics

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-On their first sample of the Feast Fest gravy, critics gave it better marks than usual, as it scored 98.3 on the first sampling.

Though a fan favorite, the specially formulated gravy has always elicited a lukewarm response from scorers and critics. However, this curse seems to have been broken here with the 98.3 mark. In 2010, gravy only scored 94.0, and in 2009, it scored 91.7.

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Points Will Not Be Docked

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-It has been confirmed that the NCA will not dock points from Feast Fest after they determined Jawroldy Jurrjens did enter the floor to raise the chef count to 20 by the thirty-second mark.

When the chef count slips below 20, it must come back to that number within thirty seconds or points will be docked. Jawroldy Jurrjens re-entered the floor seemingly smack on the thirty-second mark, but he in fact entered 0.4 seconds in time to up the count to 20 chefs on the floor and to save Feast Fest from a points docking.

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Ceremonial Turkey is Carved

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-The Feast Fest 2011 Ceremonial Turkey, to be chowed down on by GOH Lindbergh Merrssff, has officially been carved by the Mason Duo.

However, their preference to work on other dishes before carving disqualified the Ceremonial from the Battle for the First Turkey, and the Ceremonial clocks in as the 125th of the 347 turkeys to be carved, leaving 222 turkeys to go. DigIn is at 7:03, though given the current pace the chefs could achieve an ontime or early ending to the cooking portion after five straight years of tardy DigIns.

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Choi Wins BFtFT

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-Lisa Choi has won an anticlimactic Battle for the First Turkey as the Masons withdrew from the competition. They preferred to ready their gravy before carving the turkey, and thus let Lisa Choi win off a 58.2-second lead over Jim McAllister.

Choi lost the Battle for the First Turkey in 2010 by 34 seconds. She felt "elated" to have finally grasped a win in 2011. The BftFT victory will boost her potential in the MVC voting.

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5:30 Update

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-Appetizer trays were a hit and the Masons took time out for a small private interview to answer questions about their new biopic film, as the FF chefs plumped the score up to 96.9.

Jim McAllister is now tied with Lynn Avi for NCA points with 62.

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Up Next at the Elevated Table: Green Bean Snapping and Appetizer Trays

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-The Head Chefs of the Mason Duo and Jim McAllister are currently breaking from the Floor, but green bean snapping and the beginning presentation of the appetizer trays are up next at the Elevated Table.

The appetizer trays are scheduled to be presented to Dining Hall patrons sometime between 4:20 and 4:45 Pacific.

As of 4, the 93.1 score has jumped to 93.8.

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Tape Will Be Reviewed

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-A Feast Fest tape will have to be reviewed in slow motion in order to determine whether or not the event will suffer a point docking from the NCA.

NCA rules according to Feast Fest say that 20 of the 61 chefs must be on the Floor at any given time during the Official Cooking Portion, or else the NCA will dock points. It does say that once the chef count slips to 19 or lower, thirty seconds will be given for the count to creep back up to 20. If this happens, points will NOT be docked.

At 2:52 p.m. Thursday, during a lull in the action, the chef count slipped to 18. Fifteen seconds later, William Fredriks re-entered to put the count at 19. And, nearly another fifteen seconds later, Jawroldy Jurrjens re-entered to put the count at the minimum 20.

The trouble lies in determining how many seconds had passed by the time Jurrjens re-entered, as it seemed to be smack on the thirty-second line. The NCA will now resort to slow motion replay techniques to determine whether the thirty-second mark had passed when Jurrjens stepped back into the Kitchen and whether or not points will be docked.




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At 3:30, 93.1

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-Halfway through Feast Fest 2011, a 93.1 mark is being posted. Although the mark is continuing to rise, the latest readings have some worried: in 2010, the projected score was at 94.9 by 3:30.

"We've got some work to do if our hunches are right that we're lagging behind," said Jim McAllister.

Mr. McAllister is certainly putting in his due to the event as he's racked up 34 NCA points so far. Right behind him are Lynn Avi and Joe Pasik with 33 and Jan Stephan with 32.

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Sweet Potato/Yam Mixture "Could Be Best Ever"

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-NCA Critics are receiving their first tastes of this year's Feast Fest sweet potato/yam mixture and are commenting that it "could be [the] best ever at Feast Fest." Head Critic John Shaw gave the sweet potatoes/yams a preliminary rating of 99.2, and it could rise.

The highest individual food score at Feast Fest currently belongs to the butter biscuits in 2007, which garnered a 99.8 mark. The sweet potatoes/yams have "the potential to tie or break that record" as their cooking and preparation progresses.

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91.2 at 2

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-At 2 o'clock, the projected score was 91.2 and is still rising. Jim McAllister and Lynn Avi are now tied for NCA points at 25.

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At 1, 89.4

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-The Feast Fest Official Projected Score at 1:00 p.m. was 89.4 and continuing to rise. Jim McAllister quickly has taken on a role as points leader, with 18. In 2010 he scored 77 at Feast Fest.

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Ceremonial Turkey at 11:57

-Marina del Rey, Ca.
-For the first time in Feast Fest history, the Ceremonial Turkey was inserted in the oven BEFORE the start of the official cooking portion. Feast Fest rules do not prohibit the Ceremonial Turkey from being in the oven before the start of the Official Cooking Portion, but such a thing had never happened before.

The Mason Duo and Jim McAllister lifted the Ceremonial Turkey into the roaster oven at 11:57 a.m., twelve minutes before the official start of 12:09. However, the NCA then moved the start of the official cooking portion to 12:00 flat, seeing as "everything was ready to go and we were just waiting for no reason," so that the Ceremonial will go in the books as being three minutes early rather than the first-thought twelve.

The NCA has exercised the power of moving the start of the official cooking portion only once before, in 2004, when it shoved it forward from 12:05 to 12:00 flat.

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