Posted by The Wichita Eagle, KS on June 13, 2009 at 10:33:45:
Bread contest goes national in Wichita
BY DENISE NEIL
The Wichita Eagle
A new national baking contest in Wichita next week will give eight baking champs from around the country a chance to see the state from which their most essential ingredient -- flour -- often originates.
The National Festival of Breads, a longtime Kansas tradition that this year is expanding into a national competition, starts Monday at the Wichita Airport Hilton. It will conclude Wednesday with an all-day baking event where the public can witness the contestants work their yeasty magic.
The event is being put on by Kansas Wheat and the King Arthur Flour company, which share the goals of raising awareness about wheat farming, flour production and home baking.
"One of our main goals is education," said event chairwoman Cindy Falk of the Kansas Wheat office. "We want people when they bake or eat bread to remember this event and the farm-to-fork link."
The eight finalists in the competition were chosen earlier this year in a judging process that involved recipe analysis by a panel of food experts followed by multiple rounds of taste testing.
The finalists, chosen from a pool of 500 entrants, are eight women from around the country. (None is from Kansas.)
Most are career cooking competitors.
Marjorie Johnson, a blue-ribbon decorated cook from Robbinsdale, Minn., is a semi-celebrity, having made several appearances as a cooking correspondent on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno." The 4-foot-8-inch cook and cookbook author will bake her ABC Wheat Bread during the competition.
And finalist Jessie Grearson from Falmouth, Maine, was also a finalist in this year's National Chicken Cooking Contest. She's making a sweet potato focaccia.
After two days of touring wheat farms and flour mills and eating Kansas-centric foods, the eight contestants will get down to baking on Wednesday.
They'll square off in an Airport Hilton ballroom, each assembling two loaves of their breads in individual mini-kitchens as the public watches. The winner gets $2,000 and a trip to the King Arthur Flour Baking Education Center in Vermont.
Wednesday's activities also will include several cooking demonstrations and educational seminars on a main stage, as well as more than a dozen bread-related vendors and sample providers.
The Festival of Breads started in Manhattan in 1990 and has featured only Kansas cooks during nine competitions since then.
But this year, its organizers decided to secure sponsors and take the contest national. They hope it will grow into one of the country's premiere national cook-offs, much like the famous and prestigious Pillsbury Bake-off.
The contestants -- including Johnson, who gave the contest a plug on a recent Leno appearance, seem to share the organizers' enthusiasm.
"They're so enthusiastic about getting to come to Kansas during wheat harvest," Falk said. "Most have never been to Kansas or even seen a wheat farm."
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