Came a time, when the challenge to, and here I quote from the official Waitstock 12 info site, to 'whip up a couple dishes in a stone-age "kitchen stadium" using nuts, berries, and the "mystery ingredient."' What the mystery ingredient was is anybody's guess. Can you recognize it here?

How 'bout here?

This contest happened right about exactly at the time I *finally* became hungry enough to eat. And OH BOY what a wave of hunger it was! I was so hungry I could eat a... a... a MYSTERY INGREDIENT!!!! and so, apparently, were these brave souls:

        

Most all of the dishes were stir-fry jobs served up over pasta. I remember most of these tended toward the unpleasant end of the culinary spectrum. My stomach winced and twitched in ominous ways. I was beginning to suspect it might have been the massive intake of alcohol coming back to haunt me all too soon... But - THE SOUP! omg the SOUP was just spectacular! Heavenly even. A delicately flavored dill take on a cream-of-mushroom soup of which I devoured 3, maybe 4 bowls. It didn't occur to me til later that I may have been eating some 'wild' mushrooms. Not psychedelic aka 'magic' mushrooms; I have had those before, and would have recognized them or at least recognized their effects, but something more twisted, more sinister, and less edible! [Note: since then I have given up this theory.. I no longer believe I ate any poisonous 'shrooms aka 'toadstools' at this or any TW festival]. This chilling thought didn't occur to me until it was far too late to do anything about it...almost 24 hours later!!!