Tuesday, July 21, 2009

One Blue Ain't Bad

Well, the results are in and it was just a so-so showing this year in the culinary competition at the fair for the Country Girl. My carrot cake received a first place/blue ribbon (four years in a row), the peach jam and plum jelly each came in second place (both were beaten my husband's Great Aunt Juanita, 85 years old and the doyenne of all things canned) and my corn muffins and biscotti each came in third. A middling showing in my book, very disappointing.


I have to say, I was pretty miffed at the results, and not just because I think my black chocolate biscotti with cranberries and almonds is outstanding and should have won better than third place, but because I'm not exactly sure the judge was qualified. Usually, the fair has a member of the local University of Illinois Extension or the Homemaker's Education Association or a master canner or a chef or someone with a culinary background judge the competition. This year, they asked four people and everyone said no, so they resorted to the 60-something husband of the fair's supervisor of crafts. His qualifications? He was a cook in the Army. I heard his wife say to the culinary supervisor, "I wonder if his smoking will affect his taste buds and his judging?"

His taste buds weren't the problem.

In the fancy cookie category (in which my biscotti was entered), the judge disqalified someone's pecan tassy entry because he didn't think it was a cookie. An outrage! The pecan tassy is the most elegant of cookies! And so much work to make. Worse yet, the judge didn't know what biscotti was and had never seen it before. Please. I know this is Jersey County, Illinois, and all, but they sell biscotti at the local Wal-Mart for God's sake. They even sell it on the counters of local gas stations.

And so we suffer these little indignities and thank God this is the most important thing we have to worry about.

On top of Jessie James' visit, it was a big week here in Jersey County.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Burned banana bread, 4-H and fair queens

It's Fair Week here in Jersey County, and the community is beside itself with excitement. And rightly so. The 4-H shows wound up yesterday, capped by the annual 4-H barbeque and auction, where the local bankers and businessmen (and they are all men) come out for an evening of pork chop sandwiches, homemade lemonade (made by my mother-in-law and served by yours truly) and no-contest bidding on prized pigs, bunnies, whethers and other livestock.

The organizers set up a ring in front of the grandstand and the kids come out, one-by-one, with their animals. The audience has received the names and entries of all the kids along with the current market prices on livestock. After everyone eats and visits, the audience and the bidders settle in to the grandstand. The bidding (which is led by real auctioneers) follows a traditional and predictable pattern: each bank or business takes turns bidding and buys the animal at either a set price, so the kids can keep it (and take it to the State Fair or breed it), or at market price, if the buyer actually wants it. But that is extremely rare -- bidders know that you are supposed to buy the animal and donate it back. That way, every animal gets sold, the kids and the 4-H program make a little money and every bank and business supports 4-H by buying at least one animal. Mystifying, yes, but it is beyond charming. In fact, it's wonderful. Plus every buyer and seller gets their picture taken with the fair queens.

The 4-H shows and sale always kick off Fair Week, followed by lots of other events: tonight's fair parade, where everyone, and I mean everyone, either lines the 14-blocks of State Street in downtown Jerseyville leading out to the fairgrounds, or marches in the parade. I will march, as usual, with the Rotary Club, passing out little American flags for the kids to wave. The local grocery store always passes out popsicles and everyone else throws candy. Again, beyond charming.

But the real news is that everyone is in a tizzy because the county won a lottery and Jessie James, of West Coast Chopper fame, the star of Celebrity Apprentice and Sandra Bullock's husband, will be here Friday night with his road show. No one can believe that little old out of the way Jersey County got this huge star, let alone the organizers of the fair who don't seem to know who he really is and what a huge crowd he could pull in. He'll be here the same night as the National Tractor Pulls, which is always a mob scene. This will be interesting.

But my real interest in the fair lies in the annual Culinary Competition, where bakers enter our prized baked and canned goods, vying for the top honor of Best in Show, Best in Division, or simply a Blue Ribbon. Three years ago, in 2006, I won a blue ribbon for my carrot cake, a blue ribbon for mu chocolate fudge, a white ribbon (third place) for my peach preserves and a blue ribbon and best in show for my chocolate almond biscotti. That may have been my proudest moment.

I skipped 2007 and entered again last year, but none of my items garnered more than a white ribbon. Different judges, different tastes, or maybe I was off my game. This year, I have vowed revenge and seek the grail, again.

Despite the fact that there is no rule against entering items made from a box, that offends my sensibilities. I am a purist and bake everything from scratch. In fact, I use milk from the family farm, eggs from my chicken and fruit from my trees. I buy the flour and sugar.

I started three days ago, on Saturday. Dave and Willa picked plums from Little Gram's tree and I cooked them down, straining them three times to get as clear a juice as possible (this is very important). The jelly I made was lovely -- clear and bright purple. But it didn't set as tightly as I liked, so I am nervous. The peach preserves turned out all right, if a little dark. Little Gram wasn't sure I had big enough chucks to qualify for preserves, but Big Gram thought it'd be all right. The politics of jams and jellies. Who knew?

On Sunday, I had a tantrum when the pilot light on my gas oven kept going out and would not stay lit (I was doing a test run of baking). I told Dave Stine in no uncertain terms that when it came to be show time that pilot light better stay lit. He changed the thermo coupler and did some other stuff to the oven and promised me it would work.

Entries were due at 5 p.m. yesterday so I got up at 5 a.m to bake. I made carrot cake, corn muffins, plain biscotti, black chocolate biscotti with cranberries and almonds and banana bread. Things were going well until I checked on the banana bread and the pilot light had gone out. Dave fixed it again, and I put the bread back in but something went wrong. Despite the fact that I set the timer for 20 minutes less than than the one-hour bake time, when I checked on the banana bread again it had overcooked and I felt I could not submit it. Too brown.

When I went to the fair office at 5 p.m. to enter my items (they are checked in with so much gravitas you'd be amazed),  the superintendents asked where my banana bread was. I told them the whole story and they expressed genuine concern over the fate of not just my banana bread, but what an untempered and untrustworthy oven could do to my home cooking in general. It was lovely moment, and as I left the fair office to go serve lemonade to 4-H kids, farmers and bankers, I had a spring in my step about this country life.