I am almost finished reading COOK OFF by Amy Sutherland. Though published in 2003, it is a little out of date (will explain in a minute), but well worth reading. It is a story of those who enter food recipe contests. It follows the lives of the some of the truly big contesters (that's what they call themselves), their big prizes and some of their secrets. One of the interesting things I read was that people create recipes on their computers, submit them to recipe contests and actually win big prizes without every making them. Can you imagine.
This book will not go on sale, but I recommend you try and find it and read it-you will be inspired. This book is going to a friend of mine, Marsha White in Dallas, TX, who has suffered in the recession, like many of us and thinks that maybe entering cooking contests is a way to make some extra money.
It has inspired me, when I get home from this trip, I'm going to start dabbling in some of these food recipes contests and maybe win some good prizes.
Many of the big name/big cash prizes written about in the book have fallen away to the nation's economy, including The National Chicken Cook-Off, The National Beef-Off (though they may re-open this in 2012) and Pillsbury is still having their bake-off, but recipes are to be submitted Jan-April 2011, but the Bake-off, will not be until sometime in 2012.
There are still some big prizes out there, but because of the computer age, they now receive tens of thousands of entries, instead of hundreds.
When the book listings stop in the next few days, they will re-start on October 15-I have to time everything, so that I'm home when the EBay sales come in, because I know you want your books right away. Look for Valerie2901 for lots of new listings of cookbooks on EBay. Again thanks for your sales and remind me about feedback.
That's all for now.
Cookbook Val