There are some ingredients in this challenge that you can get tasked with and trust your gut. For me (@amandarhode) I've got a pretty good gut when it comes to conceptualizing food. But a pretty good gut doesn't mean perfection–especially with an ingredient you have zero experience cooking with...I'm talking to you bamboo. Last month, after I returned from an inspiring 2.5 week work trip to China and Taiwan, @malibukenny challenged me with the task of using bamboo as my secret ingredient for May. Sadly, unbeknownst to me, bamboo is a bitch. It's not an easy ingredient (or flavor) to master in a month. In truth, I was so intimidated by cooking with bamboo that I turned to bamboo extract and Hot Bamboo Shoots from Grand Asia Market. I'm not proud by my intimidation, nor my jarred bamboo and extract-dependent short corners. I'm especially not proud that, even with those helping hands, this burger sucks. Really. Total flop. It's too fatty and tastes a little like what I imagine piss to taste like. Regardless, I plated it with my original intent in mind, determined to see it to completion. This is my bamboo burger: bamboo rice formed–with wet hands and bamboo sea salt–into rice buns (if you've had a MOS Burger before, you know my intent here), pork belly cooked gua bao (pork bun) style, topped with chopped hot bamboo shoots. And, of course, while this burger is "complete," that doesn't mean this challenge was successful. That's right, for the first time in the history of #TheGreatBurgerChallenge, this challenge was a failure. And that's okay. Because that happens sometimes in challenges, in intimidation, in ideas, in trying, and in life. I'm strangely at peace with this. (As a perfectionist, this is a strange emotion for me to have) I tried. I failed. And I learned from it.