The kitchen goddesses

Young Chang

Six hours, two trash bags, two clothes changes, a roll of paper

towels, a sink full of bowls and many dish towels after she started

baking at 10 a.m. Monday, Bernadette Redding finally delivered her eight

food entries to the Orange County Fair.

She’s done this -- put herself through a day’s worth of cooking in a

kitchen that gets hotter with the creation of each dish -- every year for

13 years for the sake of being competitively culinary.

OK, she missed one year because she got back from Hawaii too late to

cook up her usual storm. But she wins, be it a major ribbon or smaller

honors, almost as regularly as she enters.

“I’ve always loved to cook and bake,” the Costa Mesa resident said. “I

like working and sharing things with other people.”

Redding is just one of many cooks who have made it a tradition to

enter the fair’s food contests every year. For these cooks, the event

isn’t as much about the rides and the funnel cakes as it is about the

chance to exhibit work.

Redding won five awards this year: four class awards and one division

award. A division is made up of classes.

Her Hawaiian carrot cake took third place in the layered cakes class,

her crab wontons won first place in the canopies and hors d’oeuvres

class, her Hawaiian sweetbread pudding won fourth place in its class, and

her blueberry pie won second place in the pies and pastries class.

Redding, a part-time teacher for the Newport-Mesa Unified School

District, also enjoyed a bigger division win for the cookies category,

hers being coconut macadamia nut cookies.

The rest of her eight entries included pumpkin bread, lemon bars and a

chocolate Haupia pie.

The recipes are either her own, her friends’ or ones she found and

made into her own by adding macadamia nuts instead of walnuts, for

example.

“My husband and my kids are my judges,” said Redding, 45. “And I give

leftovers to friends.”

She first entered the fair’s contests in 1988 after walking through

the Home and Hobbies building the previous year and thinking: “I could do

this! I like to cook!”

Redding increased the number of foods she entered every year, until

the number got so high that making everything the morning of became

impossible. She toned down the quantity of her goods, but she still

insists on cooking her desserts and appetizers the day they’re due, for

freshness’ sake.

Her only major accident Monday was the destruction of her blueberry

pie. It was cooling on the stove when a can of Pam fell from the cupboard

and landed in it.

Redding’s husband rushed to the store and got her new blueberries and

new lemons, because she adds lemon juice in the pie. It was only 1:30

p.m. though and Redding ended up entering a winner.

In contrast, Claudette Truex, who has entered the fair’s cooking

contests on and off for 15 years and won as regularly as Redding has,

makes it a point to make much of her goods in advance.

Her menopause fruit cake, called this because it contains ingredients

that are good for women’s health, was made a week in advance because it’s

the sort of thing that gets better the longer it sits.

Truex did make her almond scones the morning she turned it in, though,

because it’s a goody that needs to be baked fresh.

The 45-year-old Costa Mesa resident won three awards this year: fourth

place for her almond scones in the specialty breads class, fourth place

for her meatballs in the canopies and hors d’oeuvres class, and first

place for her lemon almond fudge in the confections class.

“I usually get something, but I just do it for fun. I don’t have all

my ribbons up on a wall or in a book or anything,” said Truex, who is an

assistant at South Coast Repertory’s business office. “I like reading the

constructive criticism from the judges.”