But even that wasn’t the truth. She wanted to be proud ofherself. She wanted to prove this toherself. Somehow the clock in her life had started ticking faster and faster. It wasn’t a wall clock marking hours, but a stopwatch, speeding to some finish line in a race she didn’t know she entered.
If she was going to be a woman of substance instead of a woman hanging on by a thread, it was now or never.
Her family thought cooking competitions were Hope’s little hobby. It wasn’t her hobby. It was more.
So, she failed her first time out, big time, but she didn’t quit. She went back home and kept learning. She kept trying new ideas and testing her creations.
And Hope’s persistence paid off. In the second year of her local competition, she’d qualified to go to the big show in Las Vegas again with a fantastic hamburger slider. She was so excited; it wasn’t a dessert! She could better recreate this dish under pressure and in warm temperatures.
But Archie, her husband, said they couldn’t afford to send her to Vegas again.
“Great idea, Hope. How about I just give you this month’s mortgage payment so you can go to Vegas again and lose,” Archie had said. He sneered when he said it, but even with that annoying sneer, she knew he was right.
This so-called hobby was expensive. Hope had to pay for travel and all her cooking supplies. The World’s Best Dishes Food Competition did pay for the hotel, but still, Archie’s words rang in her ears. They’d finally crawled out of debt from the girls’ college and the Great Recession of the early 2000s. But barely, just barely. There wasn’t extra for travel in the Venerable household budget. Though Archie seemed to find money for his pursuits. It was hard not to notice that.
Still, it was selfish for her to go, after how terribly she did the first time.
Year one of The World’s Best Dishes Food Competition, Hope had brought a bad recipe to the arena. In year two, she bowed out completely. She watched from home and wondered what might have been.
But this year, this time, Hope took both of her previous failures and used them as fuel to form a new plan.
She perfected a new recipe, developed a creative way to present her dish, and she did it in between earning real money with her catering jobs. She’d parlayed her hobby into a budding career.
During the day, she managed the local Café Maria, a breakfast restaurant in Covington. Covington was in Kentucky just outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. Hope traveled back and forth over the Ohio River border on the weekends to take every catering job she could book. That catering money was her ticket. Archie couldn’t say boo about her “extra money.”
She’d worked herself ragged. No assistants, no days off. She was surrounded by food day and night. Hope was a woman on a mission. She knew she looked wan and scraggly lately from the effort. But she had a fire in her gut to make this work.
She wouldn’t be guilted into staying home this year. If she had a chance to compete in Vegas, she would do it. No regrets.
Hope was fueled by something she had suppressed for decades, something that refused to die, no matter how many times circumstances conspired to kill it.
Hope didn’t dare reveal her real dream, even to herself.
She knew there was more to this so-called hobby. A win in Vegas could unlock it.
It took her a year, but she’d squirreled enough away to pay for the trip to Vegas for the competition. This was on top of what she made at the restaurant that paid their normal bills.
But she still had to win her region, Cincinnati, to get to the big competition in Vegas. You couldn’t just go to the Las Vegas round, you had to earn it every year.
And she did it! For the third time in a row, she won her region. She proved she was one of the best food competitors in Southern Ohio and Northern Kentucky. Hope qualified for the big show this time with her crustless zucchini pie. She’d kicked the crabcakes out of her competition.
She was on her way again, armed with experience, and answers for Archie or anyone who wanted to tell her it was frivolous or selfish.
If she wanted to prove she was supposed to be here, that she could cook with the best of them,
Hope and her zucchini pie recipe would have to fire on all cylinders.
The competition in Las Vegas included country categories and then the big international finals. It really was the world’s best food prepared by the world’s best chefs and cooks.
Since she’d won her region in Kentucky and Ohio, Hope earned the right to represent the region for the USA portion of The World’s Best Dishes Food Competition.
Several winners would be crowned: appetizers, side dishes, main course, dessert, recipe, and BBQ were this year’s categories. The winner in each category got eight thousand dollars and the right to move on to The World’s, all being held the same week in Las Vegas.
It was like competing in Miss USA, winning, and then doing it again the next day for Miss Universe, well, without the crowns and swimsuits.
The big winner in The World’s Best Dishes Food Competition got one hundred thousand dollars, not a tiara.
Hope was not focused on The World’s, at all, really. She was there to do well in the recipe category, that was it. She was there to live down the embarrassment of her first foray two years ago. If she was lucky enough to get an honorable mention on this big stage, with dozens of talented culinary professionals, she’d be over the moon.
