Rebecka Evans is an award-winning home cook and food blogger, and an avid food and nature photographer. Rebecka lives in California and is happily married to her sweet husband Blake. Blessed with five children, this proud “Papa and Gamma” also have four beautiful grand-girls, and one grand baby boy.
Rebecka began entering food competition at the age of twenty-five and began her food blogging journey over six years ago and is the proud Owner of At Home with Rebecka.com.
Years of commitment to the art of recipe creation and food competition has recently paid off with a very big win. Rebecka won the Food Network’s Clash of the Grandmas “Home Sweet Grandma” taking home her largest cash prize to date, $10 Grand!
Rebecka is the reigning Gilroy Garlic Recipe Queen winning 1st Place at Gilroy Garlic Festival 2016 with her Garlic Goat Cheese and Bacon Soufflés. Total cash prize $5000.00 and the coveted Gilroy Garlic Crown!
Rebecka holds the title of 4th Place Bacon World Food Championship 2015 and is the First Place winner of the 2015 World Food Championships Blogger Summit “Food Fight Write!” Total cash prizes equaling $3000.00
Rebecka teaches interactive cooking classes for private events, and was recently featured as a guest speaker at the San Francisco Flower and Garden show 2015, “MAKING HEIRLOOM JAMS WITH GARDEN PETALS.” She is also in the process of publishing her first cookbook, showcasing some of her favorite edible canned petals, jams, jellies, salsa and pickle recipes.
Rebecka is a trained classical vocalist and loves singing opera. She has performed in many professional productions in her lifetime.
For more information:
Music, Food and Family. It’s what makes my heart sing!
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Now that you have won the 1st place at the Gilroy Garlic Festival 2016, can you please tell me where to find your Garlic Goat Cheese and Bacon Soufflé recipe? Thanks!
Hi Anne,
Thanks for contacting At Home with Rebecka.
The link below will take you to the blog post with my winning recipe. It’s a longer post with recap of the event and the recipe near the end of the post.
I’d be happy to know how you like the recipe. Feel free to contact me with your thoughts!
Best Regards,
Rebecka Evans
http://athomewithrebecka.com/garlic-goat-cheese-bacon-souffles-wins-gilroy-garlic-crown/
Hi Miss Rebecka! I’m not much more than a wannabe baker but being a Lubbockite myself I have some insight that you may be able to get some mileage out of. As a teeneager I worked at the cafeteria in Monterey Center on 34th in the 70s, and had the hots for a girl who worked there in the evenings and at the Pie Kitchen on 50th in the mornings. You can guess where I made myself a nuisance….
Anyhow, one of her jobs was separating eggs. Lots of eggs. The whites were far more valuable than the yolks, and certain recipes were needed to balance the need for egg whites, especially for making merangue. I know that Butter Chess pie was a yolk-sink, so you are on the right track.
Some other things that may help. The recipes for the same pies varied depending on whether they would be served fresh cooked or frozen and ready to cook/thaw. Nearly every cafeteria used only frozen pies, created at another facility, delivered twice a week. We occasionally got fresh pies from the Pie Kitchen on a trial basis, I believe we may have been the only one, and that due to some relationships between the employees/management. I couldn’t say. A few cafeterias may have made some of their own pies but generally not. Probably a matter space and facility, as the baking areas were usually small and had plenty to do already with breads and cakes. If it could be frozen and shipped and stored, so much the better to keep costs and complexity down.
Fresh made pies, up until the mid 70s at least, were cooked in thin aluminum pie pans. I have a couple still and you can find them on ebay even; they are stamped ‘FPK’. I’m sure that would make a difference in the cooking compared to a thick glass dish. Frozen pies (the ones that you would almost certainly eat at the cafeteria) were cooked in a very thin foil pan. Icebox pies were only thawed of course.
I also know that corn starch was used in a lot of the custardy recipes at the pie kitchen, I have no idea about this one. I do know that there was disagreement among some of the cooks over the use of buttermilk powder in the frozen pies, as opposed to fresh buttermilk at the kitchen, and I know butter chess was one of them. I remember other rants (not regarding any specific recipe), like the difference in molasses used (if it wasn’t blackstrap it was supposed to be a bad shameful thing). I recall other vague things over the brand or type or whatever of brown sugar or vanilla, shortning vs lard, corn syrup is not a honey substitute no matter what those godless heathens say, etc. Some very colorful rants painted the pie kitchen depending on who was or wasn’t there. But even at the pie kitchen, recipes changed sometimes.
One other thing, a lot of recipes in the cafeteria changed in the mid-70s (and probably regularly through the years) regarding the fats and oils used. Shortening had to replace lard, certain vegetable oils were retired and replaced with new ones, and I seem to remember polyunsaturated fat was suddenly controversial. My insight stops there; at the cafeteria I was a dishwasher, pot scrubber, and the stocker twice a week when the truck arrived, and I helped out cleaning and stocking at the pie kitchen. Along with flirting. I think she got the better of the deal.
Hi Bob, thank you for taking the time to give me such great insight to cafeteria pie making. Your personal account made the read even more enjoyable!
You have a lot of good suggestions for making a better Butter Chess Pie. I used to own aluminum tins unfortunately, they’ve been misplaced over the years and several moves. I’ll have to be on the look out to acquire more for my next Chess Pie making session. I’ve used buttermilk powder in other recipes but never Chess Pie; will have to give that a go as well.
I’m about to do a Google search for the Pie Kitchen, in hopes of finding a recipe for their Chess Pie!
If you ever happen across the Furr’s recipe for Chess Pie…PLEASE pass it along! Cheers!
You are in luck, I located a single surviving tin from the pie kitchen, best guess is circa 1972. It is actually stamped in a different way than modern pans, making the sides a little thicker than the bottom. If you are seriously attempting to recreate a Furr’s recipe it might be a good idea to use it as a reference for selecting the tin you actually end up using (this one is well used and probably would have been retired if it had been a plain tin). You have my email, send me some kind of mailing address and I will be happy to put it in the mail. You have to promise to make another stab at this recipe though.
Hi Bob, I’m so sorry for the late reply! I’ve been creating recipes and jetting around for the World Food Championships in FL the past few weeks. You’re a dear, to be willing to share your 1972 Furr’s pie tin with me!!! As much as I’d like to see how the tin compares to the newer versions, I can’t let you part with your heirloom. It’s a part of your story and needs to be held in the deepest regard by the it’s true owner! Thank you so much for thinking of me in this way! Here’s a challenge for you…I would love to see a chess pie recipe from your kitchen, if you’re willing to share that with me? I’d even post the recipe and photos to my site if you’re up for recreating?? You can email me at rebeckasevans@gmail.com when, and if you decide to accept the challenge. I plan to take another stab at the recipe this Christmas. Cheers to you and yours!!