SCANDAL AVERTED AT BAKED GOODS EXHIBIT
This summer I became the newest Assistant Superintendent of Breads, Cakes and Pies at the Jefferson County Fair. I volunteered only after Superintendent Mimi Snyder assured me knowing how to bake was not important. This was quite a relief. If the expiration date on my baking powder is any indication, the last time I made anything from scratch was during the Clinton administration.
Assistant superintendents accept entries, assign them to one of 13 sub-categories, slice cakes and pies so the judges can taste them, artfully arrange the entries in an eye catching display (making sure no live flies are trapped under the plastic wrapping), and clean up. Judging is left to experts like Ora Cooper. She has been awarding ribbons since 1963, the year she remembers tasting 23 applesauce cakes.
I admit to being nervous when I appeared at the Fair on Saturday, August 16. I was the novice, after all, the new kid on the team. Little did I know I would save our Baked Goods Division from a scandal unparalleled in the Fair’s 50-year history.
The day started off well. Long time competitor Eleanor James brought in the first entries at 10:00 AM. For the next three hours we catalogued, cut and displayed homemade confections like deep dish cherry pie, peanut butter fudge, apple cobbler cake and hand kneaded loaves of bread still warm from the oven. At one o’clock we had just over 180 entries.
I could tell my work ethic and uncanny ability to manipulate plastic wrap was really impressing Mimi and my two colleagues.
The achievement that really earned their admiration occurred later in the afternoon.
The Fair building had become a virtual reality oven, with the inside temperature feeling like 350 degrees. The meringues were sliding off their lemony foundations and some of the fudge was actually melting. We were all tired and hot. Even I was having trouble getting the plastic wrap to stick to the bottom of the paper plates.
The first entry in the Decorated Cake category arrived. The cake was an exact replica of an automobile racetrack. Pretzels formed the grandstand and dyed brown coconut simulated the track. A more senior Assistant Superintendent, obviously overcome by heat and exhaustion, raised her knife over the racecourse and announced, “This is so pretty I don’t know where to cut out a serving”. Even I, a novice, knew one does not take a knife to a decorated cake. They are to be judged on appearance not taste. Quick action was called for.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” I screamed grabbing the knife handle mid air. Fortunately, we were all covered in a thin sheen of sweat so the knife slipped easily from her grip. Thanks to my quick thinking, the racetrack stayed intact and ended up winning a blue ribbon. The Baked Goods Exhibit remained free of scandal for another year.
By 6:OO pm, the judges finished awarding ribbons and I had time to walk around the display tables. Frances Magaha won a blue ribbon in my favorite category: “cake baked from a mix”. Magaha calls her winning entry a “funeral cake” because she always makes it as comfort food for families of departed friends. Magaha has been winning blue ribbons since the first Fair. This summer was no exception.
I offered the best tribute I could to Mrs. Magaha’s hard work and 50-year commitment to the Jefferson County Fair. I smoothed, stretched and tightened the plastic wrap around her entry.
My last official act of the day as Assistant Superintendent of Breads, Cakes and Pies was to assure no fly would besmirch Frances Magaha’s prize winning funeral cake.
September 2003