Both my mom and grandma were “good cookers” and encouraged my younger brother and I to enter a baking contest in the Annual Fall Fair. Although we were both placed in the same 8 – 10 year old age category, he won the grand prize with his Old School Butterscotch Brownies! It’s possible that his success had something to do with not eating half the brownie batter.
As an adult, I’ve won two cooking contests, albeit both as second place. One was with Lipton’s in 1990 when I was awarded $100, plus a massive microwave oven, the size of a small house. In the early 2000’s I won a full set of cookware through a staff contest in a national grocery company, now 5000 employees strong.
My husband, a talented, professional baker has a vast repertoire, and at home he’s a scrumptious cook. What’s his secret? He follows a recipe.
When our children were growing up, there were a few hiccups with my creative cooking. Results were either very, very good, or very, very bad… Mostly everyone survived… although I’m still traumatized by the memory of said offspring – mockingly (and dangerously) tossing my fresh blini crepes (with the density of bricks) like frisbees, around the kitchen and at each other.
My Yum Recipes are very, very good. Except for the Abysmal Peppermint Cookies, which truthfully relate a mad-lib baking journey, something I believe we’ve all experienced at one time or another!