__janice Weinrick Food

__KAREN DURRETT

Steps:

• I grew up in a large family--seven children--in a small town in Indiana," Karen Durret says. "It was great. My mother was the traditional homemaker, and my greatest memories growing up all relate to food. There was always a pot of something on the stove. My mom expressed love through food." The beuaty of American cooking is that a small-town Indiana girl can combine elements of Italian, Mexican and Midwestern cuisines to create a spectacular result that is pure American: Chicken and Black Bean Tostizzas.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

__ELLEN BURR

Steps:

• 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.

__JANICE WEINRICK

Steps:

• Bake-Off® winners' creativity is not confined to their cooking. Janice Weinrick was equally innovative when deciding what name to use after she was married. "In keeping with merger mania," Janice tells us, "we took half of my husband Michael's name (Weintraub) and half of mine (Myrick) and created the name 'Weinrick,' which became our legally married name." With her mind again on mergers, Janice adapted a traditional Costa Rican Cream Cake for the contemporary American kitchen, proving that doing things by half measures is sometimes a brilliant solution.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.