Suffering From Appliance Envy, Courtesy of LG!

Do you ever watch black town cars whisking people around and wonder who’s inside? Last week the Accidental Locavore was one of those people, courtesy of LG Appliances. In between eating some wonderful food at Empellon and Meatball Madness, LG had asked me to take part in a friendly competition to promote three of their new refrigerators and benefit Share Our Strength. When I signed on for it, I knew there was going to be some serious appliance envy, especially since I’m constantly battling overflow in the fridge!

The event pitted three of us “food influencers” (such a much better phrase than foodie, don’t you think?) in a competition to show off the features of these new LG refrigerators. Sandra Lee was responsible for the recipes and LG was donating $25,000 to Share Our Strength in the winner’s name. My theme was “ease” and my fridge was the one with a door-within-a-door so you can grab things like drinks without opening the whole door, a great idea if you’re constantly popping in for the same things. My recipe was Sandra Lee’s version of chicken parm, super easy to toss together.

The competition, Sydney Kramer of Crepes of Wrath and Annie Dolce of Daily Meal, had the mega-capacity and blast chiller models of refrigerators. For the mega-capacity fridge (truly the one I coveted…miles of shelf space and a freezer drawer that changed my mind about having the freezer below), Sydney was charged with making sliders for a crowd and Annie had to make pasta before the blast chiller on her model, chilled a bottle of white wine (8 minutes).

This all took place in a model kitchen (or three) that LG put together just for the event. Too bad we were under time constraints, because it would have been lots of fun to put some of the appliances through their paces (like the induction cook-top, which I’d love to see how fast it really does boil a pot of water). I was only slightly distracted by a candy apple red washer and dryer behind my set-up. But before we knew it, we were off and cooking. Sandra Lee came by to check on our progress and chat (she’s really nice and a lot of fun) and then it was time for the judging. We were all declared winners with Share Our Strength getting the $25,000 donation from LG. Then Sandra showed us how she likes to eat cake (everyone dive in with a fork) and we were once again whisked off in our Town Cars.

If you’d like an easy way to contribute to Share Our Strength, LG has created an online game. Click here and vote on the refrigeration feature best suited to feeding a holiday crowd. For every vote cast, LG will donate $1 dollar to both Share Our Strength and Food Bank for New York City—up to $15,000. It’s a fun way to learn more about the product (maybe not as fun as the way I got to learn about the products, but…) and support the charity.

I’ve told you which fridge I’d like to have in my house, what about you? Mega space, easy access door or blast chiller? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks to LG for the photos with Sandra Lee!