__bobbie Sonefeld Recipes

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• Part of Pillsbury's reason for starting the Bake-Off® Contest was to celebrate the many unsung heroes of America's kitchens, who hadn't received public credit for the trays of cookies, the platters of cakes and the baskets of bread that issued from their kitchens.Of course, for every Bake-Off® winner, there is still an unpublicized kitchen hero for whom the appreciation of her family is reward enough. Lily Wuebel was lucky enough to have both. When asked what he thought of his wife's $25,000 cake, Peter Wuebel said he'd always loved the cake, and "it's worth a million to me."From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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• If anyone ever asks you what it was like to live richly through the twentieth century, direct them to the story of Birdie Casement. "I married Russ," Birdie says, "then World War II changed our lives. We found ourselves wrestling with gas rationing, sugar stamps, tire shortages, among other shortages, and two wee tots....The following years were a merry-go-round of PTA, fund-raising, cake bakes, Brownies, Cub Scouts, car pooling, measles, trips to the zoo, picnics and all the fun, tears, brawls and challenges that go hand in hand with parenthood. Time flies, and soon no one was hurrying home for that noontime sandwich." Birdie became a kindergarten teacher and was nominated for Colorado teacher of the year. At the Bake-Off® Contest, she wowed everybody with her ebullience, her wisdom and, of course, her salad.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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• So much of American cooking has international roots, but a sense of what the cooking of indigenous Americans was like can be gleaned from Cape Cod resident Ellen Burr's harvest. "I love to gather wild edibles: bolete mushrooms, dandelion greens, sassafras leaves (to dry for file powder for gumbo). I pick lots of berries--blueberries, strawberries, shad berries, raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, cranberries, elderberries, rosehips, rum cherries, and English blueberries--for desserts, for freezing, for preserves, and for jellies. I also dig clams, gather oysters and mussels, go crabbing and fish for trout and perch." Although Ellen has devoted so much of her keen attention to native foods, she also turns to foods with an international heritage for inspiration, and comes up with hits like her Dotted Swiss and Spinach Quiche.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.