Winner of Your Best Dumplings

Congratulations to Katie Morford and Humaira Ghilzai, whose Afghan Dumplings with Lamb Kofta and Yogurt Sauce won this week's contest for Your Best Dumplings, earning her a handsome All-Clad d5 Stainless Steel 3-Qt Steamer Set from Williams-Sonoma, plus big prizes from Viking, OXO and Tiny Prints, and a spot in the next food52 cookbook!

Q&A with Katie Morford (Humaira is on vacation)

• Describe an early food experience that has influenced the way you think about food and/or cooking. 
• Watching my grandfather cook. He did so with such love and abundance. Everyone wanted to be at his table.

• What's your least favorite food?
• tripe

• What is the best thing you've made so far this year?
• I made a pasta sauce by pureeing a roasted kabocha squash with roasted garlic, a little milk and grated Parmesan. I tossed it with linguine and topped it with toasted chopped walnuts.  It was delicious and super healthy. 

• Describe your most spectacular kitchen disaster.
• When I was first getting into cooking, I made a smoothie with an immersion blender. I brought the blender up to my mouth to taste it and accidentally pushed the button. The next day was my very first day of work right out of college and I had a huge fat lip. That's a mistake you make only once.

• What is your idea of comfort food?
• My mom's baked macaroni and cheese

• Apron or no apron?
• No apron

• What's your favorite food-related scene in a movie?
• The food Cher makes in the movie Mermaids is pretty entertaining... everything the family eats is on a skewer.

• If you could make a show-stopping dinner for one person, living or dead, who would it be?
• Tina Fey

• You prefer to cook: a. alone, b. with others, c. it depends on your mood
• c.

•  

• Katie in the kitchen with her kids (left) and Humaira with a platter of Afghan kebabs; the lovely All-Clad d5 Stainless Steel 3-Qt Steamer Set they've won from Williams-Sonoma (below)