Osteria La Spiga (1429 12th Avenue) has just announced that it’s holding a recipe contest for all amateur cooks who’d like to show off their Italian chops and possibly get their dish featured on owners Sabrina Tinsley and Pietro Borghesi’s spring menu. The winner of the contest (which closes on March 22) will not only get bragging rights and his or her recipe pout on the menu, but will also receive dinner for two off the tasting menu, complements of the house, plus paired wines. The details are thus: “Amateur cooks of any age may enter the Italian recipe contest. Recipes must incorporate spring ingredients and have six ingredients or less, excluding oils, vinegars, seasonings and garnishes. Recipe directions should be written simply and include the number of servings. Recipes will be judged on how well they represent authentic Italian cuisine, originality, flavor combinations and scalability for restaurant service.” And, of course, La Spiga’s crew reserves the right to completely alter any facet of the winning dish to fit the menu, their mood or the availability of breast of hobgoblin, tomato-flavored cotton candy, Skittles or those murderously expensive Italian truffles. All entries should be emailed to contest@laspiga.com and ought to include, bare minimum, the actual recipe itself, its inspiration and a sample of the finished dish which can be just smooshed right into the USB port on your home computer. The magical elves that govern the internets will take care of the rest.Now while under other circumstances I might make fun of this promotion a little (saying something about how the crew at La Spiga must really be getting desperate if they’re turning to the housewives, foodies and well-meaning hobbyists in the neighborhood for bulking out their spring board), this time I’m going to let it go. Why? Because I have a recipe of my own I want to enter: the one I came up with in the wake of the Beppe Bigazzi/Cat Soup scandal of a couple weeks ago–the one where the legendary Italian TV food personality was fired after reminiscing about his childhood in Tuscany spent eating the local cats.To my mind, this is a perfect choice. It’s terribly authentic (and I have Bigazzi’s word on that), apparently “a succulent dish” (because everyone knows how tender cats are). And it’s certainly scalable for restaurant service since, if they go for it, La Spiga’s kitchen would be the only one in town shopping for product at the local Humane Society.The only problem? It has one too many ingredients. But if La Spiga’s judging requirements could be loosened just a little so that red wine would be considered among the oils and vinegars and seasonings as an uncounted ingredient, I’d be golden.I’m not going to include the recipe here (because I don’t want any of you sneaky little bastards stealing it), but if you’re really interested, just follow the link above to read my original piece on the Bigazzi uproar and to see my recipe, adapted from the French Lapin a la Cocotte.Good luck to all. But when I win this thing, I’ll be sure to try and keep my gloating to a minimum.