National Chicken

Cookoff: Recipe Fever in America
by Amy Sutherland

(Page 3 of 6)

Thousands of entries have been screened, a hundred or so have been prepared, and fifty-one dishes have been given the thumbs-up. The cooks have been telephoned with the news: "You're a contestant in the National Chicken Cooking Contest!" The chosen have crammed their dry ingredients, pots, knives, and timers into their carry-on bags and flown from points in every state and the District of Columbia to Sacramento, California, on this April weekend for the 2001 contest. They've checked into what the tour books say is the best hotel in town, the white Hyatt Regency, which looks vaguely like a Florida import. They have zipped across the street to the convention center to inspect the cookoff floor and their 10-foot by 10-foot cooking station, complete with their state flag. They've had their official photo snapped as they all yelled "chicken"; pawed through their goody bags of almonds, apricots, avocados, and turkey-jerky; devoured a dinner of California-everything in the state museum, where they glanced over the state constitution and met John Muir's ghost in between making cocktail conversation. And now, bright and early on the morning of the cookoff, they - five men and forty-six women - stand in single file like beauty pageant contestants, their red sashes emblazoned with their home states draped across their chests, waiting to walk the red carpet into the opening ceremony.

As celebrity hosts Cindy Williams, she of the poodle skirt on Laverne and Shirley, and Andre Carthen, a wound-up TV and Broadway actor who nobody has ever heard of, call out their names, flub hometowns, rattle off jobs and hobbies ("She has over twenty cats"), the contestants walk in one by one as a spotlight gilds them. Some look embarrassed, almost sheepish. They clasp their hands before them or grip purses like security blankets. The contestant from Alaska seems to sleepwalk. Others soak up the attention, flash big cheerleader smiles, and take long, easy steps. One chirpy contestant even waves and yelps "Woo-hoo." Halfway through the alphabet, at Montana, it becomes all too clear: The heavy hitters are here.

There are at least fifteen contestants, nearly a third of the entire group, who are cookoff veterans. Ten are alums of the Pillsbury Bake-Off® contest. Two have each been competing on the cooking contest circuit since the 1970s. One just won two grand prizes in national contests, including $5,000 for a rice recipe that used...chicken.

"Oh-sawge," Cindy Williams sings out, garbling Diane Sparrow's hometown in Iowa. Sparrow, unfazed, smiling, shoulders back, marches in the room like she owns it. She is back for her second National Chicken in a row. She was celebrity struck at the '99 Chicken, what with all the big-name contesters, such as Edwina Gadsby and Roxanne Chan. Now she returns, a name to be reckoned with thanks to a winning streak that hasn't given yet. Also, it didn't hurt Sparrow's confidence that the contest director pulled her aside at this morning's breakfast buffet to tell her she dreamed that Sparrow had won.

She has lugged a cupboard of equipment with her, including a ceramic pitcher that she had custom-made in Minnesota for serving her Sticky Sauce of Dijon Mustard and Maple Syrup. Her husband still fumes over all the driving to get the pitcher. It took two three-hour round trips to Red Wing, Minnesota. Sparrow didn't care about the gas or time, just that the pitcher perfectly complements the blue-speckled plate that the Maple Mustard Chicken drumsticks go on. She has also packed an outfit - navy pants and a yellow blazer, both linen - that matches her dish. She is not known as the queen of presentation for nothing. Add to that, chicken is her forte, and she has practiced making her dish as she never has before.

In saunters Bob Gadsby, one-half of the powerhouse contesting husband-wife team ("He enjoys restoring old fire engines"). His Montana ribbon drapes over his offensive lineman-like girth, cinching at his waist. He dwarfs just about everybody, except for a giant white chicken in a polka-dot dress who watches the proceedings, beak agape, from a dark corner of the room. As a customs officer who once worked the California-Mexico border, Gadsby doesn't break a sweat easily over cooking competitions. As he puts it, he's so calm, "acid could run off my back."

This is his first Chicken, as the contesters call it. Gadsby has switched roles with his wife, Edwina, whom he tagged along with to the '99 cookoff in Dallas. Edwina walked away empty-handed, but her husband roamed the cookoff floor, carefully studying what worked (organization) and what didn't (disorganization). In other words, he knows exactly what to expect, and that includes "being in the money" with his Tuscan Chicken Cakes with Tomato-Basil Relish. If he was to win, he would be the first man to do so since 1976.

Pat Harmon steps into the room, her penciled arched eyebrows giving her a slightly manic look. She strides down the red carpet nonchalantly. Harmon, a retiree and devout Jimmy Buffet fan, is one of the few female contesters who doesn't consider competition a dirty word. She embraces it, which is near heresy in the contester world.

This is also Harmon's first National Chicken. She's been entering at least one contest per week for the past several years and has the winning gift baskets and cookbooks to show for it. She has two Bake-Off® contests under her belt, but until now she has not been able to break into other major national cookoffs. Chicken thighs braised in tea and apricot nectar got her here. National Chicken marks a turning point for her as she finally competes with her peers because, as she puts it, the "who's who in cooking" is here. She is not intimidated, as usual.

Then there is classy Janice Elder, an executive assistant in Charlotte ("She'll use any money she wins for a dream trip to Africa"). National Chicken was her first ever contest back when she was a kitchen- challenged newlywed. Her dish, chicken doused with canned cherries, looked like a leftover from a traffic accident. Since then she has honed her chops at about every cookoff you can think of and regularly scores in recipe contests, as does her husband, Larry.

Ruth Kendrick is relatively new to the cooking contest world but, as Carthen announces, "She was fourth runner-up at the last Chicken cookoff." What Carthen doesn't mention is that she is a crossover competitive cook from the ultra-tough Dutch oven world, which makes the likes of National Chicken look like a coffee klatch. Moreover, she won the 1998 International Dutch Oven Championship Cook-off with Salmon in Black and White Sesame Seeds and Raspberry Ganache Fudge Cake. And she did it over a fire in the desert using a cast iron pot. Obviously, she's no slouch.

They just keep coming. Barbara Morgan of California is the queen mother of contesters, having scored in more than six hundred contests since winning a much needed $100 for a meat loaf recipe with fresh spinach in 1980. In two short years of contesting, Claudia Shepardson of New York, who includes her grandson on her list of hobbies, has come on strong on the circuit, picking up grand prizes right and left. Liz Barclay, an assistant principal in Annapolis, Maryland, zips into the room like a filly eager for the starting gate. She regularly makes it to cookoffs and places in recipe contests, but the big cash prizes have eluded her. She hopes this cookoff will be different.

The rookies have no idea what they're up against. Some of them think the cookoff is a big hoot, "me, at a cooking contest." They've been carrying on as if they just won the lottery. They've been too busy quaffing free wine in the hospitality room, sucking down gratis meals, and napping on king-sized beds in their paid-for room to strategize or even think about the actual cookoff. To them their presence here is just a lucky break, a divine blessing that landed them an all-expenses-paid trip for two to California on this early spring weekend.

© 2004 Penguin, a division of Penguin Putnam, used by permission.

About the Author

Amy Sutherland is the author of Cookoff and was a features reporter at the Portland Press Herald in Portland, Maine, for seven years. Her articles have also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, and Disney Magazine. She has a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University.