They call themselves “contesters.”
Across Colorado, college professors, software engineers, even a former mayor of Aspen are bent over their stoves, concocting their next prize-winning creation.
Some are as intense as those poker players you see on ESPN. Others cook to relax.
Angela Buchanan, an instructor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, sent five recipes into the Pillsbury Bake-Off in 2004 and, to her surprise, won a spot among the 100 finalists.
“I wasn’t aware of this subculture of people, and it is a subculture,” says the writing and rhetoric teacher. “It totally sucked me in.”
It was at the Pillsbury Bake-Off that she learned of “the list,” Cooking Contest Central (at ).
The website gets about 40,000 visits a day, says former journalist Betty Parham, who lives in Lafayette and started the site 10 years ago.
Direct marketing
As reality TV turns its cameras on the kitchen with increasingly popular shows like “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Top Chef,” interest in competitive cooking is at an all-time high, and food marketers from burger chains to Manischewitz are taking advantage.
The kosher brand is using its Simply Manischewitz contest to broaden the brand’s appeal and to research new ways of using its products.
Sponsoring cooking contests allows companies to put their “sponsorship dollars towards grassroots programs,” says Beth Betcher of Agnew Communications, which organizes contests at state and county fairs. “It bypasses high-dollar advertising and connects to their core demographic — moms and children.”
Serious, but fun
Karen Gulkin lives smack in the middle of that demographic. The Greeley mother of two has racked up wins in contests big and little and is currently considering a third run at the Pillsbury Bake-Off. She and CU instructor Buchanan have competed in some of the same contests — Pillsbury, Smithfield — and have a similar “not that big a deal” perspective on their hobby.
“I was watching the Pillsbury and a chicken panini sandwich won. I said, ‘I could do that,’ ” says Gulkin, who got in with her Sausage and Apple Bake recipe. “I went to the Bake-Off in 2004 and it opened my eyes to a huge big world.”
She thinks her recipes win because they’re easy, something everybody can do, says Gulkin, who won $25,000 worth of prizes in the 2007 Pilgrim’s Pride Winning Taste Recipe Contest and last month, $5,000 as the Cookin’ with Smithfield people’s choice winner.
Even though she’s a proven winner, Gulkin doesn’t take contesting all that seriously. “At first I was really excited about it. Some people live by it and they are very, very serious. I just have fun with it.”
Before his Spam win, dessert
He might be the National Spam Champion now, but Ron Pearman had no idea what he was getting into when he took a dessert to his future mother-in-law’s house a few years ago.
“I thought I’d wow them with my dessert, and her mom said, ‘Ron, you need more practice on your dessert.’ That kinda shocked me,” he says. His fiancee explained that it was her family’s way of saying they wanted more. So he kept practicing on them and eventually took third place in the state fair.
“After that, it was really competitive,” says Pearman. “We’re shaking up the state fair every year now, myself, my wife, her cousins, her mom and dad. We bring a new flavor, a new perspective to the fair, and people are like ‘oh, man what are they gonna do this year?’ ”
A software engineer at Peterson Air Force Base, Pearman might not fit exactly into that core demographic of moms and kids, but he married into a well-known Pueblo family of state-fair cooks, and has used some of his winnings to start his own family. He and wife Krista put their prizes toward the cost of adopting their daughter Emilie, 4, and plan to make another trip to China this fall for their second daughter, Lauren. The $3,000 he won for his Mini Spam Nacho Burgers will help.
Easier than politics
The only contest Rachel Richards has actually won was the 1999 Aspen mayoral race (she served until 2001), but that hasn’t stopped her from browsing the options at Cooking Contest Central.
“It’s almost like the Colorado Lottery — you can’t win if you don’t play,” says Richards, now Pitkin County commissioner. She and her son would nosh at some of Aspen’s innovative restaurants, then return home and try to duplicate the dishes.
“Contests are easier than politics — people don’t argue that you’re doing it the wrong way.”
Connecting with her roots
In February, Denver cook Debbie Foster Leebove flew to New York for her first contest. She’d never considered entering anything until she saw the Simply Manischewitz contest. “I thought, ‘this is for me!’ Those were the products I grew up with in my house. That’s what I connect to.”
She thought back to her grandmother’s cooking. “She used to give me borscht with dollops of sour cream, and I swirled my spoon until it turned bubble gum pink. What girl doesn’t love pink?”
She added borscht and beets to her grandmother’s meatloaf recipe along with tamtam crackers and tested it on her friends. “Some people were laughing like ‘oh yeah, you’re gonna be in the cookoff, huh?’ ” Indeed, she was.
Leebove competed against five other finalists — “some really observant Jews and a non-Jewish person.” She had a blast in New York, and although she didn’t win the $25,000 prize package, she came away with a new inspiration.
“I’m going to teach Jewish cooking classes to give people a deeper connection to Judaism in a hands-on way,” says Leebove.
Elk tastes better with bacon
Castle Rock construction manager Jack Christensen entered Redwood Creek Wine’s Campfire Classic because he wanted the poster that was a prize for sending in a recipe.
He developed his bacon-wrapped elk tenderloin in an effort to get his family to eat what he brought home from hunting trips. “My family isn’t over the top about elk, so I thought, ‘I gotta figure out a way to make it taste better so they don’t make faces when I cook it.’ ”
Those bacon-wrapped tenderloins helped him win $1,000 in the regional contest last summer. He headed to New York, where he cooked alongside more experienced contesters. “Here’s some some random guy they’re up against. It was a whirlwind experience out of left field. I didn’t win, but it was still a heckuva lot of fun.”
An academic approach
Although cooking competitively is a hobby, Angela Buchanan has managed to combine her passion with her profession. She urges her writing students to incorporate food and memory in their work, and did catering while working on her masters degree in rhetoric.
On her second trip to the Bake-Off in 2006, Buchanan won the Dinner Made Easy $10,000 prize for her Cuban-Style Sandwiches with Green Chile au Jus.
Along the way, Buchanan’s husband, Harrison Carpenter, caught the fever and made it to the 2008 event in Dallas. He’s also working on his entries for the 2010 event.
“I am helping him — as a taster. He has a totally different style than I do. What he took to Dallas, I thought was terrible. It was a North African-style pizza, and that got him in.”
Turning up the heat
Buchanan, who has won 30 contests since 2004, says competition is getting more intense.
“I think it’s exploding, actually. The ‘Ultimate Recipe Showdown’ and the challenges on the Food Network has made it all a lot higher profile. I think it’s way more competitive,” she says.
Cooking Contest Central’s Parham agrees. She compares it to professional sports.
“On (the Food Network), every other show is a showdown or a throwdown,” she says. “Lemme tell ya, honey, this is the NFL. The only thing they don’t do is paint their faces.”
Kristen Browning-Blas: 303-954-1440 or kbrowning@denverpost.com.
Get your culinary game on with these
• Cooking Contest Central (recipecontests.com) lists hundreds of contests, big and small. Along with tips and trends, the site is a community for contesters. Much of the information is free, but for $25, you get access to more tips, lists and member forums.
• Haven’t entered a contest before? Start with a small one. (Although frequent winner Angela Buchanan started with the Pillsbury Bake-Off, so anything’s possible.) There are monthly, quarterly, annual and biannual contests. Some upcoming deadlines:
• The Pillsbury Bake-Off is held every other year (even years). Deadline for the 2010 contest is 11:59 a.m. (central daylight time) April 20. Only online entries will be accepted, or in Spanish at . Grand prize is $1 million.
• National Beef Cook-Off is every other year (odd years). Online entries at . must be received by 11:59 p.m. (central time) March 31. Mail entries must be postmarked by March 31, to ANCW, P.O. Box 3881, Englewood, CO 80155. Grand prize is $25,000.
• Bigoven.com gives away a $100 Amazon gift certificate every month for the best recipe photo. Enter at . Kristen Browning-Blas
Feeling competitive?
Colorado contesters offer the following winning tips.
Don’t try to go with convention. Go with what you like.
Keep ideas on index cards.
Read the rules.
Make sure you use required products.
Put ingredients in order.
Be exact with measurements.
Don’t leave out any ingredients, even something like salt or water.
Kristen Browning-Blas
