A thoroughly absorbing and enthusing few days at the Land Rover Muddy Chef Challenge in Connecticut. Land Rover North America lent me a brand new top-spec Range Rover to drive up from Virginia, and what a car it is! I will post separately on the Grey Lady however.

Organiser Eric Yohe put a huge amount of heart and soul into the Land Rover Muddy Chef Challenge 2016, the eighth year of the event, and that was evident in every facet of the four days’ fun and games at Lime Rock Park Raceway in Connecticut.

The focus of the event was divided between offroading and camp cookery. Offroading as provided at Sandanona – the local shooting grounds owned by outdoor gear retailers Orvis, whose Land Rover-designed trail was the start point, an easy meander through the woods, but with some tough axle-twisters to sort the men from the boys. Those with a thirst for more hardcore rock crawling went off to the local Ma Bell trail in Northampton, Massachusetts. Camp Cookery was split between the Iron Chef event on Friday, where those with an aptitude for camp cookery put teams of two together and were presented with the Challenge – they were given a potato, a can of Dr Pepper, some pork loin, some rice crispies and a fresh bulb of fennel, they were allocated shares in a common ‘pantry’ with things like onions, oil, olives etc, and of course access to whatever goodies they had brought in their Land Rovers – and given around an hour to cook up a competition-winning dish. Team Cowbell, consisting of Lorenzo Gaudioso and Lars Vigen (and their Defender 130 crewcab) took top prize here with a tremendous effort. Event Two was the Muddy Chef Challenge, where all campers and attendees had to create a three-course meal from whatever they had with them, and present it for judging. My pal Terry Jackson won first prize with his tuna sashimi on a bed of roasted corn and mango. Days of boil in the bag pasta are long past!

Event sponsors Stony Creek Brewery, Cide Road Switchel, Harpoon Brewery, Hill Rock Distillery and 13th Street Cocktails provided vast quantities of very superior Falling Down Water and a grand old time was had by all.

It’s a great event and the success reflects the hard work that Eric put into it. He has started planning Muddy Chef 2017 already…… http://www.muddychef.com