It’s not too hot in the kitchen for 4-H cooks

Published 2:00 pm Saturday, August 20, 2005

With the skill of a scalpel-less surgeon, Maria Kidder pulled open her just-buttered strudel.

She pulled the bag of sugar closer, and quickly sifted a handful through her fingers. She rolled the strudel shut and put it back in the oven.

Kidder stepped over to her companion in the kitchen, Rachel Martinez, and whispered: “Do you think the judge saw that?”

They both giggled.

There was a lot of laughter coming from the 4-H competition cooking kitchen at the Island County Fair Thursday.

Many of the chuckles came courtesy of Kidder and Martinez, a culinary odd couple in the 4-H “home ec” contest.

The search for the best, and most enjoyable edibles, is a staple of any county fair.

At the Island County Fair — which continues through Sunday — the menu of cooking challenges is long and varied. It ranges from all-comers contests for breads and cookies, jams and jellies, to 4-H competitions for food preservation, foods of the Pacific Northwest, and other events.

The 4-H cooking contests have plenty of variety themselves, said Briahna Taylor, a superintendent for the home ec contest along with Teresa Farmer.

Kidder and Martinez had picked the category “Food for all occasions.” Basically, it means cooking a dinner for four.

There are other categories, like “On the Spot,” Taylor said.

“We give them a scenario and a whole kitchen full of food,” Taylor said.

In “On the Spot,” the cooks are given a dining dilemma they have to solve, such as an anniversary brunch where the cook was theoretically feeding herself and mom, dad and sister, but the dinner table was being refinished and the cook couldn’t use it to serve.

Competitors are not only judged by the taste of their food, but also by how it is served, the place setting, and then the kitchen clean-up.

Kidder and Martinez had picked food from Austria as the menu for their “food for all occasions” challenge. It included the noodle dish called “spaetzle,” plus breaded pork cutlets, bread, beets and more.

“It should be interesting. I’ve never had that before,” said Taylor, who tastes every dish as part of her judging duties.

“We usually see people come in with foods that are easier to cook,” she said. “Spaghetti, French bread, easy things.”

“The people who are serious about it make more complicated things,” Taylor said.

The competition is open to students in third grade through high school. It starts with competitors submitting a list of what they’ll use and how much it will cost.

Back in the competition kitchen, Martinez and Kidder are as different as salt and pepper.

Kidder, 14, has been a kitchen fixture for years; she was inspired to cook by her Austrian “oma.”

“I love to cook. My Oma loves to cook, and she kind of cooks just by eye, because that’s the way she grew up,” Kidder said.

Martinez, 16, was drafted onto Kidder’s team via a really long voicemail message in early July.

“I was like, ‘Whoah. No way I’m cooking,’” Martinez recalled. She added that she had made a frozen TV dinner once or twice.

About three weeks later, she relented for her best friend. The Coupeville girls have known each other since third and fourth grade.

“Maria was the new kid on the bus. She probably sat by herself for three weeks,” Martinez said.

“Me, being a kind and compassionate person, sat next to her and said hi,” Martinez deadpanned.

Kidder reacted in mock horror, and the two started laughing about the loner label.

They had to laugh. Thursday’s real test was going nothing like the practice dinner they had made last Friday.

Kidder forgot to bring a meat hammer to tenderize the pork. And she forgot the spaetzle press, too, and had to run over to her parents’ camper to get it.

And the 4-H equipment didn’t include wooden spoons, or large soup pots for cooking the spaetzle noodles.

Then there was the oven; a Magic Chef electric model.

“This oven doesn’t have a timer,” Kidder gasped.

“Well, look at how old it is. It’s like, from the ‘70s,” Martinez said in shock.

So they improvised with what they could. Kidder used her cell phone as a timer. And the spaetzle press did double duty as a meat hammer.

Cooking judge Seth McKee, a sous chef at Christopher’s in Coupeville, watched closely as the girls navigated their new kitchen.

McKee, who was inspired to become a cook after seeing Emeril on television, knows from his culinary school days what it’s like to have someone watching every step, clipboard in hand.

“It looks like they’re having fun. That’s 90 percent of it,” McKee said.

Others were watching, too.

The kitchen has a long row of windows on two sides, and a steady stream of fairgoers stopped to stare. “Iron Chef” jokes could be heard over the kitchen partition walls.

The girls’ banter continued, shifting from a just-broken plastic spatula to their later activities at the fair.

“My public presentation is on strudel,” Kidder laughed.

“Mine is on ringworm,” Martinez said.

Despite the missing gear, the skipped steps, and the pressure of competition, Kidder was optimistic to the end about the meal.

“I’m hopeful this work pays off in a good meal. That it’s flavorful and it looks good,” she said.