For several years now, I have been thinking about entering my banana nut bread into the Los Angeles County Fair. That's because even before then, Don has really praised this bread of mine. What has stopped me? The fact that I haven't entered ANYTHING into a county fair since I was in high school, and no home ec projects since I was in junior high school. (My junior year in high school I entered a science project.) I kind of thought entering county fairs were for kids and retirees. The fact that the Los Angeles County Fair is larger than even the California State Fair didn't change my mind. I just figured there were lots of kids and retirees in southern California entering stuff.
But a few things have changed my mind in the past year. First of all, in 2011 a former friend of mine, Sarah, entered something. I can't remember what, and we didn't go to the fair. Sarah is a 30-something who is into all kinds of culinary coolness. I especially like her Asian food creations, (she is the American born child of Chinese immigrants) but I don't think Asian Food is a category you can enter at the fair.
Second of all, I have won a cooking competition in the past year. The Sandals Cupcake Wars competition gave me the opportunity to win the "best cake" award.
Thirdly, somewhere in between the last county fair and the Cupcake Wars, or maybe shortly before or after, I knew I wanted to make myself more well known as a foodie. If I have food on display at this very well-attended fair, perhaps with a ribbon on it, that would help!
So I am going to enter the banana nut bread, at long last. Since those wonderful cupcakes were based on a pumpkin bread recipe, I am also going to enter pumpkin bread, with the same secret ingredient (fresh pumpkin instead of canned) my winning cupcakes had.
I have until August 3 to figure out if I want to enter anything else. I would really LOVE to make the pumpkin bread as cupcakes again and enter it into two other cooking contests the Los Angeles County Fair is having this year. That's the pumpkin recipe contest and its own version of Cupcake Wars, the Cupcake Baking Contest. But, I think having already been entered into Sandals' competition, I would be breaking the rules if I entered the exact same cupcake into either of these fair competitions. But I'm keeping an open mind. If I stumble upon another fabulous pumpkin recipe or another fabulous cupcake recipe, and can prove to myself either is so wonderful I have to share the finished creation with complete strangers, I will enter one of those contests too. Or maybe one of the many others.
If you live in southern California, and would like to enter something in the Los Angeles County Fair too, here is more information.
This sounds so exciting. I am not good enough to even cook for my family, lol.
ReplyDeleteThanks Tracy. I would encourage you to give it a try. Cooking your own food is SO MUCH cheaper than eating out, and unless you are talking about a very nice restaurant, it's usually much better too.
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