I have won the Alaska State Fair original pie recipe contest 3 times.
And I've only entered 3 times.
My name is Patricia Miller, and everybody calls me Patty.
I won a smoked salmon contest.
I've won a cheesecake contest.
And I've entered the bread competition, and I've entered the spam competition.
But I haven't won in those yet.
So I've put a third of a cup of butter flavored crisco in here.
And I've got a half a cup of granulated sugar.
We're going to just cream that together.
You don't get too many baking competitions at fairs, where they pay $100 premium.
That's enough incentive to make me want to enter.
And while that's creaming I'm going to add 2 eggs.
Plus I love to compete. I love food.
But then when I take my food someplace, and those people enjoy it,
then it really makes me happy.
And we're just going to beat that until it's nice and light and fluffy.
Families, for centuries, have met in a kitchen and talked about -
they've solved family problems, they've talked about good times,
they've talked about bad times.
And I'm always happy when I'm cooking.
If I'm having a bad day, I come home and I can start cooking, and I can feel better.
I can feel stress relieved.
And in this container I've sifted together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
This year at the fair there's a wing competition, and I've never done that.
So that's my next challenge.
And we're going to add some of this flour mixture.
We're going to add it alternately with a cup of mashed banana.
I didn't like moose meat before I came to Alaska,
but the Alaska moose meat is so much better than any that I had had from Canada.
It's just tasty, and now I love it.
My daughter-in-law always says, when they're coming to dinner, she goes,
she'll say to the boys, "We're going to our favorite restaurant, Nanna's house."
And that makes me happy, because I see joy in their face.
I know that's something that bonds us together, and makes us family.
And it extends into stories.
This is just a box that's got all kinds of recipes from my Nanna.
And then the last thing we're going to add is some walnuts.
It's all written in their handwriting, and that's what makes my recipe box messy.
But it makes it mine.
Everybody says, "Oh I could never make banana bread." Now how hard was that?
And we're just gonna bake it at 350 degrees.
And it's going to stay in there for about an hour.
Generally I drop it off, and then I go walk around.
Because I generally don't like to stand there and watch when they're judging.
You just don't know. But then the anticipation.
When you see the people come back from tallying the scores,
and the ribbons are in their hand, and then you're like, drum roll please.
And sometimes you win and sometimes you don't, but at least you've competed.
And you have given someone else some competition.
When you do win, then it's the greatest feeling in the world.