Petal residents answered the call for the recent Petal Farmers Market’s inaugural cooking contest.
Eleven blueberry desserts and five homemade salsas awaited the tasting of the judges.
Held during the last market, cooks of all ages put their best mixing bowl forward for a chance to be recognized.
In the end, Allison Descombes and her aunt, Kim Harrison, placed first with their luscious blueberry cheesecake. Descombes’ sister, Samantha DesCombes, placed second with her beautifully-presented blueberry cake and third was Maggie Lee, who prepared a blueberry cobbler.
In the salsa category, Ha Tran placed first with her fresh salsa, not too spicy, but yet not too mild; Faye Danielson placed second with her regular and thick salsas and Carrol Powell placed third with his salsa that had quite a kick to it.
The Descombes family entered three desserts and came away with two places.
According to Carrie DesCombes, Samantha and Allison’s mother, “Allison, a seventh-grader, and her aunt made the blueberry cheesecake. Her aunt makes cheesecakes all the time, but had never made a blueberry,” said Carrie.
“They Googled a recipe, fiddled with it and were a little worried that it wasn’t going to turn out good.”
Samantha, who will be going into fourth grade, said her recipe was sort of a family recipe. “We started off making one for Father’s Day for my Dad, because he likes blueberry cake and stuff,” she said. “And we did it for my aunt, because she likes blueberry pound cake for her church. She’s allergic to gluten so we made a gluten-free one.”
Both girls enjoy cooking, as does their sister.
Allison’s pride and joy is a cinnamon roll sheet cake that her mother describes as “probably the best thing I’ve ever eaten. She’s had people ask for the recipe.”
Carrie said the girl’s dad is actually the cook in the family. “I like making desserts,” she said. “Allison sits in the kitchen all the time and watches her dad cook.”
The family grows blueberries and at the time of the cookoff had about 14 gallons they needed to do something with, so they decided to cook.
