Ask Joann Estep or her daughter Teresa what’s cooking and they’re likely to respond with the name of some down-home tantalizing treat. However, if they’re really in the mood to mix it up they could just as easily respond with the name of some less recognized exotic dish. That’s because there’s always something yummy simmering in the Esteps’ kitchen.
Perhaps they were born under the influence of a culinary star, or maybe the twosome inherited a cooking gene from their ancestors. Whatever the case, this mother and daughter know their way around the kitchen, where baking is their specialty.
In fact, the Jolo residents are such good bakers that their culinary delights captured 10 blue ribbons at the 2008 West Virginia State Fair. Joann’s super moist apple cake, rich coconut balls and box of candy earned blue ribbons and her black walnut fudge won the red.
Not to be outdone by her mother, Teresa, who steered clear of the kitchen until a year ago, walked away from this year’s fair with two first place ribbons for her apple pie and peanut pie; two seconds for her pecan pie and coffee cake and two thirds for here lime-blueberry pie and cinnamon-sour cream muffins.
“She’s gaining on me,” Joann smiled. “Next year, I’ll show no mercy.”
Though she had grown up cooking on an old wood stove, and has become quite a baker over a lifetime, it never occurred to Joann to enter the State Fair until Teresa prodded her into it in 2007.
Until last year, Teresa stayed completely out of the kitchen.
“I felt no need to cook,” Teresa said. “Mom is a great baker and cook and my two bothers are very good cooks. Why bother when you have such good cooks in your family?”
That all changed in 2007 when Teresa sought and found a special cookbook filled with pie recipes.
“I decided that I wanted to learn to bake a pie from scratch, crust and all,” Teresa said. “At first, I was afraid to tell my family what I was doing. I was afraid they’d laugh at me.”
Teresa’s first pie didn’t turn out well, but she improved significantly in a very short time. Her family raved over apple pie, and that gave her the confidence to enter a pie in the State Fair.
“Last year, two days before the deadline, I talked Mom into entering too,” Teresa said.
As fate would have it Teresa ended up winning a blue ribbon with her mango pie, though it was one she’d never baked before. Her oatmeal butterscotch pie won a red ribbon and her peach oatmeal bars won a white ribbon. She was off to a good start.
“I was hooked,” Teresa said.
Her mother’s coconut balls earned a blue ribbon both last year and this year, but it was Joann’s apple cake and candy box that beat out dozens of competitors to capture blue ribbons this year. Her black walnut fudge earned a red ribbon.
“I made sure he emphasized that we are from McDowell County when Secretary of Agriculture Gus Douglas presented me a basket of peaches as a part of this year’s prize,” Joann said. “It was so much fun being at the fair. It was a wonderful three days.”
The 2009 State Fair is nearly a year away, but the Esteps are already pondering what they’ll do to top last year and this year’s wins. Joann plans to enter the peach preserves she made from the fruit she won at this year’s fair, but Teresa is still deciding what she’ll enter next year.

“There’s a category for nearly everything at the fair,” Teresa said. “There’s even one for deer meat. For sure, we’ll be going back.”
Asked for the secret of her success, Joann noted that all good cooks love being in the kitchen. Anyone can learn to cook, but it usually takes lots of practice to excel at it, she related.
“I started cooking for my family one summer when my mother was away visiting relatives. I was about 12 at the time, but it didn’t take me long to learn. I learned to cook on an old wood stove, the kind that had a water compartment on the side,” Joann said.
“It was sweltering hot to cook on those old stoves, but boy did the food taste good. Brown beans are especially tasty cooked that way.
I still love to have one of those old stoves to cook on,” she added. “Of course, I’d want it to be located in a separate room away from the house.”
A cake decorating class taught her to make wedding and birthday cakes and a four-year stint in the kitchen of Buchanan General taught her how to cater for large groups.
“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love to cook,” Joann smiled. “I’ve improved over the years because I’ve had so much practice.”
“Mom’s really got the talent,” Teresa said. “She can eat something and know how to recreate it by tasting it. She’ll try something and you can see this little light turn on in her eyes. I can almost hear her silently saying, ‘I can do this.’”
Joann smiled at her daughter.
“Cooking has always been a special part of my life,” she said. “I especially love to bake. Cooking helped me to cope with illness when I had to quit my job at the hospital. It has helped me to bless my family. I enjoy it. It’s like therapy for me.”

BIG WINNERS - Joann Estep (right) and daughter Teresa display the 10 ribbons that they recently won at the WV State Fair. The Esteps were big winners in the baking division, and plan to enter more of their goodies next year.
“As kids, attending the State Fair was always a family tradition,” Teresa said. “When I was younger, I always wanted to display something with my name on it the 4-H Building. Now, that I’m older, I finally got to do it and it was very satisfying.” (Photo by Cathy Patton)