At 83 years old, Mary Ann Lee of Clifton Park has no intention of slowing down.
“The way I look at it, I might be 83, but it’s only a number,” said Lee. “I’m in great health and I feel great.”
On an endless quest to stay busy, Lee has an unusual hobby to keep herself occupied: entering cooking contests.
“There’s a website on the computer and it lists all these contests out there. I pick out which one I want, which one I’m suited for,” said Lee.
Lee’s latest culinary creation, Potato Crusted Crab Cakes, stood out from almost 400 recipes and won her $250 in the Phillips Foods’ Ultimate Crab Challenge Recipe Contest.
“I was surprised,” said Lee. “I didn’t make the grand prize but I was very happy and I checked out the recipe for the grand prize, a pumpkin soup with crab, and I can’t wait to make it.”
There were four $250 prizes awarded, each attached to a different grocery store (Lee submitted her recipe with Price Chopper, her supermarket of choice), and contestants were challenged to create a dish using Phillips crabmeat.
Lee happened to be on a crabmeat kick when she entered, having just returned from a family trip to Baltimore where Phillips Foods, Inc. originates.
“I ate nothing but Phillips crab cakes the whole weekend,” said Lee. “I just had a feast and when I came home I found this on the website and said ‘I’ll enter and see what happens.’”
With crab on the mind, she set out to make her crab cakes shine. The secret ingredient? Instant potato flakes.
“I thought to make it a little bit different and yet retain the basic crab cake. I thought, why not put in potato flakes and get a crisp on the outside? And it worked,” said Lee.
The judges thought it worked, too.
“Mary Ann Lee’s Potato Crusted Crab Cake is an easy to prepare, savory new way to eat crab cakes. We chose this recipe because of ease of preparation while still creating a creative, tasty dish. It was an instant hit with our chef team and we commend her on her creation,” said John Degges, executive chef of Phillips Foods, Inc.
This was far from Lee’s first foray into competitive cooking. In fact, she’s been entering recipe contests and cook-offs for 20 years and said she’ll enter about 25 to 30 a year.
“I’ve had a lot of wins,” said Lee. “It just keeps me busy and I enjoy doing it.”
Her very first cooking challenge was to bake an apple pie. While she didn’t win that time, she was hooked.
Lee’s recipes have won contests sponsored by magazines like “Paula Deen Magazine,” large food corporations and food associations, so a quick Google search brings up scores of dessert, appetizer and entrée recipes with Lee’s name on them.
“The contest will say maybe five or 10 ingredients or will tell you to use a certain brand,” said Lee. “I go through my files … and change something or make something similar. They have to be your original recipes.”
These days she sticks to contests that only require a recipe or the occasional photo, but years ago, Lee took competitive cooking to a whole other level.
“It’s exciting to go to these cook-offs,” said Lee. “It’s interesting, exciting, you’re kind of like the star of the show when you go there. There may be five people … or 100 but you still get to have your picture taken [and] prepare your recipe.”
Lee has found herself in some pretty prestigious (and infamous) competitions. She participated in a national beef contest, Paul Newman’s contest and battled her way through Pillsbury cook-offs twice.
The Paul Newman cook-off ranks high on her list of food experiences, said Lee.
“I put in a recipe for ‘Pops Macaroons’ [an homage to Newman’s nickname, ‘Pops’] and it was a macaroon recipe but rather than use flour, I used cooked popcorn and ground it up in a food processor and used that as a base,” said Lee.
Her innovation scored her an unforgettable experience, for many reasons.
“I really got to meet Paul Newman, which was quite a treat,” said Lee. “My husband and I had a lovely weekend in New York City. We stayed at the Plaza Hotel, all expenses paid.”
Pillsbury cook-offs also sent Lee on all-expense-paid trips, but those times, she was a little out of her comfort zone.
“Both contests were Quick and Easy. I’m a scratch cook and always have been so it was a pretty hard form to change and go into this with something edible and tasty and interesting, but I did it anyway,” said Lee. “It gave me a new tip on it and how to make it much easier to prepare.”
Lee prepared a pineapple tart the first time and a southwestern flatbread the second time.
She spends a lot of time dreaming up innovative recipes, but her day-to-day cooking is much easier.
“I live by myself so everything is kind of simple. There are times when I do like to go back and cook; I’ll make a roast beef, chicken soup … I entertain some of the family when they come visit,” said Lee. “I can cook but I can’t eat it all. I need someone here to help me eat it!”
Lee’s thirst for activity isn’t satiated by cooking contests alone.
“I enjoy other things like crocheting, jigsaw puzzles; I like to read and drive and visit stores,” said Lee. “I just keep tooling around.”
So what’s the key to her youthful vibrancy?
“I don’t abuse my body and I try to stay healthy and do the right thing,” said Lee.
Crab Cakes in Potato Crust
Yield: 4
Ingredients
1 lb. Phillips Lump Crab Meat
1tbsp. Butter
½ c. sweet red pepper, finely chopped
½ c. sweet onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp. Fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped
1 c. lightly packed soft bread crumbs
2 tbsp. Miracle Whip
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. Hot sauce
½ tsp. Sault
¼ tsp. Black pepper
1 c. instant potato flakes
4 tbsp. Vegetable oil
1 lemon, cut into quarters
Preparation
Melt butter in skillet over medium high heat. Add pepper and onion. Sauté 2 minutes until tender. Combine cooked vegetables, crab meat, bread crumbs, Miracle Whip, egg, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, salt and pepper in large bowl. Form into four crab cakes. Coat with potato flakes. Pour oil in skillet over medium high heat and cook 2 minutes each side until heated through and lightly browned. Garnish with lemon. May be served hot or cold.
