Posted by The DesMoines Register, IA on August 15, 2008 at 17:50:00:
W.D.M. sisters know taste of culinary victory
By MICHOLYN FAJEN • community@dmreg.com • August 15, 2008
It's a tradition for the Toresdahl family of West Des Moines to cook up awards at the Iowa State Fair. This year, 11-year-old Hannah Toresdahl took home four junior baking awards, the most for any West Des Moines resident.
Her two first-place prizes and two second-place finishes were an improvement over last year, and she is poised to follow in older sister Haley's blue-ribbon footsteps.
For Hannah, the enjoyment is the whirlwind of action in the kitchen, baking cookies, bars and this year's first-place recipe, finger Jell-O.
"That was my favorite recipe because it looks cool and it was really fun to make. But it was a little tricky," Hannah said of the multiple layers of colors and flavors she used to create her winning dessert for the finger Jell-O category of the Adventureland Park junior cooking contest.
On her bedroom wall hangs a shadow box of the 18 ribbons 15-year-old Haley won two years ago. It adds to a total collection of nearly 45 ribbons she's earned in the last six years of entering Iowa State Fair cooking and baking contests.
This year, Haley took first place for her challah braided bread and third place in the Great American SPAM Championship & Kid Chef contest for her Spam bean soup, but seeing her little sister advancing is an added reward, she said.
"It is a family event. My dad is always helping, which makes it more fun when we have the whole family in the kitchen," Haley said. "Now it's fun to help my sister learn the way I did from my dad and watch her become more independent in the kitchen."
Some years the family has entered up to 20 contests each, said the girls' father, Brett Toresdahl.
"The level of involvement has really evolved with the girls' interest in cooking and tinkering in the kitchen," said Brett, who does the grocery shopping and is often the taste tester of the finished products.
The years of experience have made Hannah and Haley careful cooks.
"We actually do most of the cooking and baking the night before. Sometimes we are shuffling between a dozen recipes at the same time, constantly washing dishes, scooping cooking dough, watching the oven and picking out the best of the batch for presenting," said Brett, whose wife, Geleen Toresdahl, is the other set of hands in the kitchen.
After years of entering fair contests, the Toresdahls are getting wise to the subjective nature of the judging. They pick recipes that can be adapted, shapes that are different from the rest and use ingredients that give an old favorite a new twist.
"I like to go around and look at the cakes to see the interesting things people have made. That is one category I'd like to try next year," said Hannah, who will be a fifth-grader at St. Theresa School in Des Moines this fall. "This is still a lot of fun for me. I know for some people it is a lot of pressure, but not for me. I've got my sister helping me and I sort of annoy her, but she's really helping me get better every year."
Haley, who will be a sophomore at Dowling Catholic High School this fall, said she loves the fair and called it an exciting time for the state of Iowa to showcase the best it has to offer. But truthfully, it is the thrill of winning that has her hooked.
"I think it is the exhilaration of baking something that you put so much work into and then seeing that the judge just loves it ... it's that feeling when you get first place that makes you thirst for the next blue ribbon," Haley admits.
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