She is also the oldest contestant at seventy-five, a reliable angle for reporters on a deadline, so there is always one or two hanging around her booth. As she entertains them, she starts hunting for the brown sugar that goes in her Cranberry-Apricot Relish. It is nowhere to be found. She panics. The rules are that no ingredients can be supplied during the cookoff. Morgan asks for sugar anyway. When she is told no, she leaves her station and arrives at Sparrow's nearly in tears. She is about to be disqualified, she wails. The contest relents, the sugar is provided, a scene is averted, and Morgan returns to her stove.

While the public's milling around and peppering them with questions rattles other contestants, Kendrick, a large woman with a naturally boisterous voice, is not flustered. In the harsh world of Dutch Oven cookoffs, contestants are judged on how much they talk with the public, not to mention the cleanliness of their cooking area. D.O. judges even check to see if the dishwater is hot. Compared to Dutch Oven standards, Chicken is like heating up a TV dinner for Kendrick. When the first dish is sent in to the sequestered judges around 10 A.M., Kendrick, who believes timing is key, is not far behind with her Chimichurri Chicken Thighs, keeping to her strategy of turning in near the front of the line but not right at the front.

Harmon, who lugged an electric frying pan all the way from Pennsylvania only to find there was no outlet for it, has happily adjusted to the Calphalon pan the contest provided. As she cooks, a buzz runs through the crowd as Sparrow breezes by with a rattan tray packed with pottery, her drumsticks cinched with corn husks, and the whole darn thing looking like a photo shoot for Gourmet magazine. Harmon looks up from her prep table and thinks "whoa," and makes a mental note to herself, "Work on your presentation."

As at every cookoff, the clock hands seem to spin faster and faster as the contest winds down. No one is more aware of time streaming by than Barclay. Last night she wondered if this might not be her turn to finally win big. Now all she's hoping for is to get her dish in on time. The first one already went in to the judges, but if she doesn't get the second version done for display, she'll be disqualified. She came off the blocks at a sprint and hasn't let up, chopping zucchinis, sweet potatoes, and red peppers at a clip, charging through the many steps of her Moroccan Chicken Pie with Sweet Potato Polenta. Now, as the second hand takes its last spins before noon, Barclay pulls her pie from the oven, garnishes it with parsley, and then hot-foots it to the display table as someone calls, "You go, girl." She is the very last one to turn in her dish.

By the time the entries have been hauled back out for the evening's cocktail reception, they have taken a decided turn for the worse. Six to eight hours after their creation, many of the dishes appear to be suffering from an advanced state of rigor mortis. Sauces solidify like aspics gone wrong. Parsley garnishes wilt and lay prone across chicken thighs. Vegetables pale and shrivel. These waning casseroles, stir-fries, soups, and salads are set one after another on a long linen-covered table. The effect is something like a forgotten buffet or church dinner, one where the diners mysteriously vanished and the only clues left are these tired chicken dishes. The presentation doesn't always help. One contestant plopped her chicken salad in an Easter basket. Another served hers on a terra-cotta saucer, the kind you slip under a potted houseplant.

The contesters, showered and gussied-up, pace the table, sizing up the competition, working over in their minds what dishes rate cash. Kendrick clasps her contest cookbook in one hand, a pen in the other. She notes her picks next to the recipes. She marks Gadsby's recipe and Sparrow's. She marks Spicy Chicken Cutlets with Three Pepper Slaw, the Oklahoman's dish, as well, but as a distant pick. Kendrick, losing her earlier confidence, rules herself out of the running. Her presentation, balancing thighs atop red and yellow pepper rings, just doesn't cut it, she decides.

Walking the length of the display table, Sparrow is convinced that hers looks the best hands down, that those long drives to get the custom-made pottery paid off. Alas, her recipe is too simple to win, she thinks. Morgan has a shot, Sparrow thinks, because she has been the media darling. She doesn't think Gadsby will win, if only because his chicken cakes don't look that good. Harmon thinks the same. Gadsby disagrees. He comes away from the table feeling his is the most innovative, that he will win something. Edwina agrees. She thinks he'll place. What she doesn't say is this: She doesn't think his is the grand prize winner. None strike her that way.

After a voluminous, five-course dinner that starts, surprisingly, with halibut, albeit Pacific halibut, and concludes with a mini white chocolate state capitol, its dome pushed askew by a rising mound of chocolate mousse - pretty but not easy to eat, especially if you are distracted by a $25,000 check dancing in your head - the wait is over. The head judge goes on excitedly about all the cross-cultural dishes, Greek-Asian, Asian-Hispanic, that the winners have "broad appeal" (big contesting buzzwords) and are perfect for spring and summer. The contesters quickly read these tea leaves, recalculating their odds. There is not much time to think, though. The prizes are announced by state, with a corny drum roll, in reverse. Fifth place ($1,000) goes to a bespectacled blonde from Idaho for her Chicken and Black Bean Soup. Fourth place ($2,000), the second chicken cookoff in a row, to a surprised Kendrick. Third ($3,000) to Sparrow. Second ($5,000) to a stylish grandmother of six from Oklahoma for her Spicy Chicken Cutlets with Three Pepper Slaw. Each winner is handed her droopy dish to hold.

With all the places named, Edwina figures her husband is out of the running. She leans over to give his knee a wifely pat and whisper, "Better luck next time," but before she can lay a hand on him, he rockets out of his seat. Suddenly he's standing at the front of the room holding his plate of crab cakes. People rise and applaud. Edwina is flummoxed. She looks around. Then it sinks in. He has won first place. He has won $25,000. He has won National Chicken, the first rooster in twenty-five years.

The next day breaks cool but sunny. The contestants are bused past fields polka-dotted with mustard and poppy blossoms to Napa Valley, where they tour a champagne cave, blend their own chardonnay at the Kendall-Jackson Vineyard, and quaff California's best. National Chicken is one of the few cookoffs that fete the contestants the day after the contest. Most cookoffs ship the contestants out as quickly as possible, like house guests who have stayed too long. At Chicken, contestants get a day to enjoy themselves without going over their recipes in their minds. The fight has already been fought. They can relax, except for Gadsby.

Gadsby feels very self-conscious, an unusual feeling for him. He is suddenly the guy with "a $25,000 check in his pocket." He exorcises some of the guilt over his newfound wealth by raising a glass of champagne at the cave and toasting his fellow competitors. It is a nice gesture, but it doesn't stop the clucking.

It isn't that Gadsby himself won. It's that rotisserie chicken won. That rotisserie chicken was allowed was bad enough, but giving it the grand prize, well, that only validates the convenience product. For some of the contesters this is a very ominous sign, a sign that Chicken may someday soon limit ingredients and limit time, that before too long the contestants will not be cooking but heating.

Bob Gadsby from Great Falls, Montana, won the 44th National Chicken Cooking Contest with his crab cakes cum chicken cakes.

Tuscan Chicken Cakes with Tomato-Basil Relish

3 cups cooked chicken, shredded and chopped
1 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs, divided
¼ cup mayonnaise
1 egg, lightly beaten
¼ cup prepared basil pesto
2 teaspoons honey mustard
1/3 cup finely chopped roasted red peppers, drained
1/3 cup finely chopped red onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 package (5 ounces) mixed salad greens
1/3 cup prepared balsamic vinegar and oil dressing
Golden Aioli (recipe follows)
Tomato-Basil Relish (recipe follows)

In a large bowl, mix together the chicken, ½ cup of the bread crumbs, mayonnaise, egg, pesto, honey mustard, roasted peppers, and red onion. Using a 1/3-cup measure, shape the chicken mixture into 8 cakes. Lightly coat each with the remaining ½ cup of bread crumbs. In a large nonstick frying pan, place the oil over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook until golden brown, about 3 minutes per side; drain on paper towels. Toss the salad greens with the dressing and divide among 4 serving plates. Top each with 2 chicken cakes. Drizzle with Golden Aioli. Top each cake with dollop of Tomato-Basil Relish.

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

GOLDEN AIOLI

In a small bowl, whisk together ½ cup mayonnaise and 2 tablespoons honey mustard.

TOMATO-BASIL RELISH

In a small bowl, mix together 1 cup seeded and chopped plum tomatoes, 1/3 cup chopped red onion, 3 tablespoons (drained) chopped sun-dried tomatoes, 2 tablespoons slivered basil leaves, 2 tablespoons prepared balsamic and oil dressing, and 1 teaspoon prepared basil pesto.

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

Tags: Recipes and Cooking

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. More