Winner of Your Best Dish in the Raw

Congratulations to creamtea, whose Dilled, Crunchy Sweet-Corn Salad with Buttermilk Dressing won this week's contest for Your Best Dish in the Raw, earning her big prizes from Viking, OXO and Tiny Prints, and a spot in the next food52 cookbook!

Q&A with creamtea

• What is the best thing you've made so far this year?
• A favorite of family and friends is a chocolate cream roll. It is based on Susan G. Purdy’s chocolate roll in her book, A Piece of Cake, but filled with a simple whipped-cream filling, stabilized with only confectioner’s sugar. Her chocolate sponge is as light as a whisper. It is the most-requested birthday cake at our house.

• Describe your most spectacular kitchen disaster.
• We had invited a family friend over to help finish the Thanksgiving turkey on Friday night. The upstairs neighbors were away on vacation, but somehow, their apartment flooded. The water dripped down through the ceiling and all over the turkey, which was sitting out on the stovetop. It poured like rain 3 stories on, down to the lobby. As for the ruined main dish, well, there was no backup plan.

• What is your idea of comfort food?
• A bowl of spaghetti with marinara sauce and Parmesan cheese brings me back to my childhood.

• Apron or no apron?
• Usually an apron, although sometimes I may be in the middle of dinner preparations before I remember.

• What's your favorite food-related scene in a movie?
• The exquisite meal in Babette’s Feast. The wines and food, lovingly prepared, soothe old wounds, melt past transgressions, re-kindle aging hearts and envelope the townspeople in a cloak of warmth and forgiveness.

• If you could make a show-stopping dinner for one person, living or dead, who would it be?
• My high-school English teacher, Mrs. Hernandez. I wish I could thank her properly for all she taught me.

• You prefer to cook: a. alone, b. with others, c. it depends on your mood
• Mostly alone.  But we have Sunday brunch for the family each week, and I do like it when the kids help.

• When it comes to tidying up, you usually: a. clean as you cook, b. do all the dishes once you've finished cooking, c. leave the kitchen a shambles for your spouse/roommate/kids to clean.
• I like to clean as I cook. Nevertheless, there does always seem to be a lot of cleanup at the finish line.