It's the second to last week in September—a week after my birthday which has long been forgotten.  It's the week before the Durham Fair. 

            My mother has the week off from work.  She has one week to accomplish the extreme feat of completing her ambitious list of 15 desserts for the Baking Department Competition.  At the end of each Durham Fair weekend, she claims she'll never enter again.  She claims at the most she'll enter one baked-good.

            This year is just like all the rest. 

            The exhibitor's guide book filled with the categories arrives in the mail in early July, and the scavenger hunt to find the best recipes begins.  She has a list of tried and true entries which almost always guarantee a First Prize Ribbon.

            Apple pie bars.  Sweetheart cheesecake.  Cream cheese mints. 

            She digs out cookbooks, Taste of Home magazines (which have some of the greatest recipes ever), and her ribbons which say what she's won for in the past.  This is the best time to be at my house.  There are always new desserts awaiting a taste to see if they are good enough to enter the competition.  My dad is probably the worst judge of quality because he will eat anything.  (Mind you he will dump the entire contents of my mom's baking cabinet onto his ice cream sundae.) 

            Each year there is some new project that each contestant can attempt.  A recipe is given with little instruction.  These are always recipes that are renowned in some Durhamite's family, and the family judges in honor of the person who made it. 

            Doughnuts.  I'll never forget when my mom said she was going to try the homemade doughnuts.  It was difficult to sleep that night.  She was up until long after midnight swearing in the kitchen.  In the morning I looked at the foil pan full of these light-brown sweet-smelling doughnuts.  They looked pretty terrible, but they tasted great!  She came very close to throwing them in the trash.  A few days later she was glad she submitted her doughnuts because they won a blue ribbon.

            The next year it was baked beans and brown bread.  My mom despised brown bread and had never made it herself, but as always she figured she'd give it a try.  (I've never understood how someone can make a recipe they've never tried before so perfectly the first time.)  Her baked beans were not bad.  She made them more than once for our family, with new combinations of spices and different types of beans.  She never quite got it right.  But low and behold she left the brown bread to the day before the fair.  Once again she thought it was only worthy of the trash can but entered it nonetheless.  She was pleasantly surprised to see that she won the Best of Show ribbon and a cute little trophy. 

            There is a short list of rules that secretly go into play the week before the Durham Fair.

            1. STAY OUT OF THE KITCHEN. 

            Picture this.  The dog casually strolls into the kitchen to smell what the fuss is all about, and she begins screaming.  Trevor sits on a stool nearby, silently watching, and she begins screaming.  My dad throws in his unnecessary two-cents about what she is doing “wrong,” and she begins screaming.  I know better.  I've always known better. 

            2. EVEN IF ASKED, NEVER OFFER YOUR OPINION.

            I remember being naïve to my mom's questions.  I remember coming into the kitchen and answering, “How does it look?”  No matter what I ever answered, if she didn't hear what she wanted to hear, she threw me out.  “Go in the other room, what do you know anyways?!”  Same went for my father.  Even though he graduated from college with a degree in the culinary arts, she asserts that he knows little about baking. (I agree. Especially after the Layer Cake Incident of 1995, but that's a whole other story.)

            3. STAY OUT OF THE KITCHEN.

            Seriously.  Do not get in my mother's way.  The best thing to do is leave the house or at least invest in a good pair of earplugs to avoid the screams when the dog inevitably crosses paths with my mother.

            With the end of Durham Fair weekend comes a handful of colored ribbons, a fridge full of leftover baked goods, and a sigh of relief within the house.  We can all go back to walking in, let alone using, the kitchen.  We no longer have to tread on egg shells… at least not for another year.  Even though she promises that she won't enter any items in next year's fair.  We'll see about that…

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