New Grandbaby!

Little Autumn Rose is the newest addition to my family. Her mom, my older daughter, Jessica, is doing well and so is the big sister, Kady. Dad, Nathan, is thrilled, too! The morning C-section was delayed until nearly 3 pm because no one told my daughter not to eat before the surgery, but baby Autumn is worth the wait.

My Other Art

The State Fair is over and what a fair it has been! For those who don't know, I love to cook and especially love to invent new recipes. That is my "other" art - creative combinations in the kitchen. Every year I enter contests at the fair and have won quite a few ribbons. At the Oregon State Fair, entering the "daily" contests give you free admission, which was the initial reason I started entering 10 years ago.

This year I entered 7 contests - 6 for food and one Trash-to-Treasure (see Aug 27th post). Of those, I won a 3rd place ribbon for my fresh Tropical Salsa,

1st place ($200, apron, tote bag ribbons and entry into the national competition) in the Hidden Valley Ranch "Fresh Taste for the Family" contest with my Summer Confetti Slaw


and 2nd place ($50, apron and ribbon) in the Great American SPAM appetizer contest with my Sunday Brunch Shooters.

In addition to the cash, aprons and ribbons, I occasionally have extra "winnings." This year, the call came right away to demonstrate my salad live on the morning news show in Eugene, Oregon (about 65 miles to the south). I had to bring everything prepped and ready to go and be there at 5:45 am, then be back in Salem ready to work by 7:30 am. I had about 2 minutes to talk about and demonstrate my dish. Here is the link for the video and recipe: http://kezi.com/infocus It works currently, but I know eventually it will be replaced with more current news.

When I got home work that day, I had a message from the local newspaper. My recipe will be featured next Wednesday in the food section. They want a photo shoot of me making the salad and the finished salad to run with the recipe. After a few rounds of phone-tag, we have scheduled the shoot for next Monday.

Imagine my surprise when a coworker approached me at work today saying she had seen my name in the paper this morning! They ran a feature article about the Trash to Treasure contest in the home section of the paper today. Though I didn't win anything, my purse was pictured and described. How random was that?


It has been fun having all the attention. I'm so glad people like my stuff. Of course I am beginning to wonder where the riches are that should go with all my "fame!"