"In a pickle." Goodness knows Lafayette (pictured above) finds himself in one quite often.

A phrase with quite a bad connotation, etymologists suggest that it came up from the process of making pickles -- that to do so, you would "stir, confuse, and mix" vegetables, or meat, or eggs in sour broth, and in doing so, preserve them in that particular state. Similarly, when we speak about someone "in a pickle," they are stuck, are bound, are in a state from which they cannot escape.

Every once in a while, it's good to have a challenge. Competition, by its nature, asks us to test our ability, to confront ourselves with tasks we otherwise might not have considered.

To this end, when Burning Pasta was selected to participate as part of a "battle" held by Foodie Fights, the online cooking competition website, who was I to back down? The rules were simple -- cook one dish. The only requirement? The dish had to include both cauliflower and raspberries.