Families Face Off in Fair’s Chopped Contest

[Charity Nebbe] There are a lot of competitions at the Iowa State Fair, and there's a whole lot of food. We found an event that combines both of those elements and sprinkles in just a little bit of family drama. It's the first ever family Chopped at The Kitchen at the Iowa State Fair.

[Emily Wynn] We are going to select two families, so hopefully a parent and a child. You two. We wanted to do more competitions here in the kitchen. All right, come on down.

So we thought, what would be more fun than to kind of take our take here at the Iowa State Fair on the ever popular Chopped TV show? So this is our take on Iowa State Fair Chopped.

You can use all four ingredients. You can use three of the ingredients. You just have to use three of the four. Okay. And then you'll get 30 minutes when we tell you to go.

So today they will be using cotton candy, pineapple, puff pastry, and microwave bacon.

[Charity] Wow, that sounds tough.

[Emily] Yeah, it should be. That's the fun part of it.

[Charity] Can you describe what you're making?

[Stacy Frazer] We're making bacon wrapped pineapple in puff pastry with a pineapple drizzle on top.

[Charity] You feel like you have a good half hour plan.

[Stacy] Sure.

[Charity] You guys cook together a lot?

[Stacy] She helps me in the kitchen a lot. Yeah, she's like my sous chef, you know?

[Charity] Nice. So you have some rapport already?

[Stacy] Yes, and we like each other, so that's helpful.

[Charity] Can you describe what you're making?

[Raffaele Cariglino] We're going to kind of candy the bacon, mix it in with the pineapple, make it a sweet treat.

[Charity] What did you think of the ingredients when they were.

[Raffaele] The cotton candy threw me off a little bit, so we kind of discarded that. But everything else looks like it can be worked with. I mean, it is Iowa. So we are solid with the bacon. We're confident in the bacon.

[Charity] And this is a father son team.

[Raffaele] Yeah.

[Charity] All right. Do you guys cook together?

[Raffaele] We do. He's. He's my guy.

[Woman] All right, contestants, you have used 10 minutes. 20 minutes remain. FYI, the puff pastry does take 15 minutes to bake, so if you're using that, you should probably get it in the oven.

Okay, contestants, five minutes remain. Five minutes remain.

[Raffaele] All righty. Should we just do like that?

Okay, that's good. 30 seconds. Come on, man.

Hey, give me a... give me a spoon. Give me a spoon.

[Woman] 20.

[Raffaele] Oh, are you kidding me? Oh no.

[Woman] 10 seconds.

[Raffaele] All right, doctor it up.

[Woman] 5, 4, 3.

[Charity] How do you decide who wins this cutthroat competition?

[Emily] Yeah, so there's some criteria. So there's like, presentation, taste, and creativity. And the audience gets to help us judge.

[Charity] All right, on a scale of 1 to 10, what's the adrenaline level?

[Michael Cariglino] Done a lot of sports activities, had a lot of adrenaline. Didn't realize how high the adrenaline was going to be here, especially when that time limit hit.

[Raffaele] But when that time came down, we...

[Michael]...were stressed those last couple seconds.

[Charity] Yeah.

[Michael] So just grateful we got it on the plate in time.

[Charity] Right?

[Michael] Yeah.

[Man] What do you think? Thumbs up. Pretty tasty.

[Emily] And drum roll. Winning Chopped today is team one from Montana.

[Charity] Presentation seems to be pretty important to you. Are you happy with how it looked?

[Biz Frazer] Yes, I think it looks pretty good.

[Stacy] She's very artsy, so I knew she'd make it look pretty.

[Charity] And are you happy with how it tasted?

[Biz] I didn't really get to try it.

[Charity] Oh, my gosh. I think you should try it right now.