Instead of firing up the grill for hungry Georgetown students last Thursday, representatives of the Georgetown University Grilling Society were cooking for a Food Network competition.

While the Hoyas didn’t take home the first place prize at the Next Grilleration George Foreman cook-off at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif. (Georgetown tied Duke for third place), GUGS President Matt Minor (COL ’05) said that Georgetown came out on top in the eyes of the producers.

Producers liked the GUGS team so much that they said Georgetown would most likely be invited back if they were to do a follow-up grill-off, Minor said.

“The odds were stacked against us from the beginning,” he said. “[It] isn’t too surprising considering we were going up against a culinary school.”

Nonetheless, Minor said that Georgetown took first place in four of the six categories (hygiene, organization, teamwork and effort), and came in behind competitors in the categories of presentation and taste.

GUGS representatives Minor, Miguel Magsaysay Alampay (NHS ’05, LAW ’08) and David Cooper (COL ’05) prepared a four-course menu for the judges, using $100 for food expenses and 45 minutes to complete each course, all on a new George Foreman grill called George Foreman’s Next Grilleration.

The GUGS team prepared a seafood appetizer consisting of crab, shrimp and scallops diced into small pieces, all placed in warm tortillas with green and red peppers, jalapeno cheese and onions. The roasted green peppers were peeled and stuffed with manchego cheese and the seafood medley and baked. The two were served with sour cream and salsa.

The second course was Jamaican jerk chicken with rosemary potatoes and grilled asparagus, using spices that the group picked up during a spring break trip to Jamaica. Minor prepared his strawberry shortcake for dessert, and the team created a banana flambee on the grill as their “Grilleration Innovation” course. The banana quarters were rolled in cinnamon and sugar, and then doused in Bacardi 151 Rum and set on fire.

“It made a great show for the camera and audience,” agsaysay Alampay said. “As Pepperdine is a dry campus, we were very happy to use alcohol as much as we could, true to Georgetown form.”

Other teams competing included Pepperdine, the University of issouri-Columbia, and Duke. Culinary students from University of issouri-Columbia took home the first place $6,000 grand prize and the “Next Grilleration” title belt, and Pepperdine won the second place prize of $3,000.

Georgetown didn’t leave Malibu empty-handed though. The iron chefs of the Hilltop came away with George Foreman-autographed aprons (Magsaysay Alampay said the former boxer sat in front of the GUGS station), and commemorative award plates, not to mention an invaluable cooking experience.

“The competition gave us a chance to step out of our charcoal-laden comfort zone and use an alternative form of grilling,” Magsaysay Alampay said.

In addition to the three GUGS grillers who were participating in the competition, four other members tagged along for support. GUGS Vice President Jared Martillotti (COL ’05) emphasized in a press release that though only three would cook, the work of GUGS, on campus and in this competition, is a “group effort.”

Foreman himself brought GUGS to the attention of executives at Carymax, LLC, the company producing the show for the Food Network. GUGS had contacted Foreman to try to bring him to campus as a guest speaker this spring, and still hopes he will accept the invitation at some point.

In preparation for the Next Grilleration George Foreman cook-off, the Food Network visited the Georgetown campus earlier this month to film GUGS in action at the grill and to interview students.

While the specific air date for the show has not been finalized yet, Magsaysay Alampay said the show is expected to air on the Food Network sometime between this June and September.

If grilling doesn’t work out for them, the GUGS team might have a future in television.

“We got great feedback and comments on how we were the most interesting to watch and best on camera because we looked like we were having a good time while everyone else was taking themselves way too seriously,” Magsaysay Alampay said.