It was a beautiful New Mexico day on Saturday, July 16, as we attended the 3rd annual DISC-IT Roundup at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Albuquerque, NM. Outside of the southwest, you might not be familiar with a discada. A discada is a popular outdoor cooking device in New Mexico. It is similar to a wok, made from a 22" plow disc. The discada sits on top of a propane, or charcoal fired, burner. This is a picture of my discada.The burner stand is from Disc-It, a discada manufacturer in Albuquerque, organizers of the Disc-It Roundup.

The DISC-IT Round-Up is a fundraiser benefiting the University of New Mexico Children's Miracle Network Fund. This fundraiser is sponsored fully by companies, and through donations, therefore all monies raised go to the cause instead of paying for costs of the event. - How does it work? The DISC-IT Round-Up is a cooking competition where the paid attendees try the food and vote for their favorites! $10 for all you can eat

For a $10 entry fee, we sampled recipes from 58 competitors cooked on their discada. There was a huge variety of interesting dishes and they were all tasty. After sampling, you vote for the best dishes in 5 categories. It was difficult voting for a single competitor since there were so many excellent dishes. Needless to say, after sampling almost 60 dishes we were pretty full.

This year's event raised almost $70,000 for the UNM Childrens Hospital Miracle Network Fund. All combined over 14,000 food samples were tasted! The overall winner of the competition was Team Los Carnales!

The event started in 2009 as a way for Nevin Montano from DISC-IT to give back to UNM Children’s Hospital for all the care his daughter and nephew received in the past. In 2009 there were 350 attendees, growing to 2500 in 2010. The estimated attendance this year was 5000-7000. They are hoping next year’s event will hit the $150,000 mark while bringing 100 or more teams out to compete.

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