Saucy way to help out

Deirdre Newman

Peanut butter and jelly is traditionally the glue that holds lunchbox

sandwiches together, but Saturday it escaped the ignominy of being

hidden inside two slabs of bread and made its debut on the outside as

a sauce for chicken wings.

Peanut butter and jelly was just one of the innovative ideas for

sauces offered up at a chicken wings taste-off at Wingnuts restaurant

on Harbor Boulevard.

Nine wings fans competed to create the restaurant’s 31st flavor of

wings, which will be featured on the menu during September. Proceeds

from the sale of the winner’s wings during that month will go to the

Westside Boys and Girls Club, which has an established relationship

of goodwill with the restaurant.

“Besides the obvious benefit of being a recipient of some

potential funding, the key is, it’s not lip service with these

people,” said Dan Monahan, branch director of the club in Costa Mesa.

“[Owner Gregg Diganci] believes in giving back.”

Six women and three men from hometowns including Costa Mesa,

Newport Beach and Irvine brought their sauces to the restaurant,

eager to tantalize the judges’ taste buds. The judges included food

journalists.

Some of the contestants said when they first heard about the

contest, they thought all they had to do was offer an idea for a

flavor. Then they found out they actually had to cook it up

themselves.

“I don’t cook at all, so I called my friend, and we whipped

something up,” said Molly Barrett, 21, of Huntington Beach, who made

a spicy pepper-jack sauce.

Trying to achieve perfect taste and texture was a challenge, she

said.

“I made one, and it was really good, but it wasn’t the right

consistency -- you couldn’t dip [the wings], it was too cheesy,”

Barrett said. “So, I made another batch. It didn’t taste as good, but

it had a better consistency.”

Brian Roberts, a captain with the Costa Mesa Fire Department for

close to 30 years, brought his concoction -- dubbed “Open Sesame” --

a firehouse favorite among his colleagues.

“We’ve always told him, your chicken wings are a hit -- you should

take them on the road,” firefighter Pete Melgoza said. “He’s one of

those guys who doesn’t measure stuff -- he just throws things

together.”

The recipe came from a retired battalion chief but has been

tweaked through the years, and Roberts has been the keeper of the

sauce, he said.

After the contestants coated 10 wings in their sauces in the

restaurant’s kitchen, the judges made their way down the row of

entries, some licking their fingers in between rounds.

The winner: Tara Poulsen’s Spicy Orange Cilantro. Poulsen won a

year’s worth of free food at Wingnuts.

“I’m shocked,” Poulsen said upon hearing the judges’ decision.

“Everything looks so good. I can’t believe I won.”

Poulsen works near Hoag Hospital and makes the trip to Wingnuts

for lunch frequently to chow down on wings, she said. Family members

convinced her to enter, and she obliged at the last minute, she said.

Her recipe includes orange juice, ketchup, chili-garlic sauce,

cilantro and cumin.

Wingnuts has been involved with the Boys and Girls Club since

before it even opened, at the initiative of Diganci. In developing

the restaurant, Diganci wanted community service to be a fundamental

theme. He chose the club as the recipient because many towns have

one, and that way, when he opened future restaurants, he could link

with branches of the same organization.

From day one, he has only hired employees who agree to help out

two hours a month at the club -- they get paid for their volunteer

time.

“The employees are on the young side, and they’re good at taking

rather than giving,” Diganci said. “I’m helping them get a jump-start

in life and having them give back to the community.”