Published: July 02, 2009 11:24 pm      

Paula McHargue …Cooking for fun and profit

About 30 years ago, Paula McHargue of Richmond entered a cooking contest sponsored by the local Cooperative Extension and was awarded a certificate for her winning entry.

Thousands of contests later, she has won about $50,000 in cash, plenty of prizes and trips to cooking contests all over the country to show for her efforts.

“After that first contest, I was hooked,” said Paula, who develops her recipes in her home kitchen, types them up, sends them out and anxiously awaits the daily mail delivery see if she has another winner.

She recalls her first “big money” win about 14 or 15 years ago. She had submitted a recipe to Quaker Oats for peanut butter fudge-filled brownies.

“I got this damaged envelope in the mail and when I opened it up, there was a check for $10,000,” Paula said. Entering recipe contests can be somewhat profitable, said Paula, whose best year brought in $28,000. She has also won other prizes, such as appliances, and has used some of the money she has won to remodel her kitchen.

One especially memorable win, a regional prize at the famous Pillsbury Bake-Off, also won her national fame. Her Mint Julep Brownies netted first place in Kentucky and attracted a film crew from CBS Sunday Morning, who spent two days at her home, following her around and taping her making the recipe in her own kitchen.

She has also appeared with the likes of Alex Trebek, of “Jeopardy” fame, and Paul Newman as the result of her culinary endeavors.

The meeting with Newman was the result of a winning entry in a contest using “Newman’s Own” salad dressings. She won a $10,000 prize to be donated to her favorite charity, The American Heart Association, in honor of her late mother.

A picture of her with Newman, and one with Trebek, hang proudly in her dining room.

While hobnobbing with celebrities and winning prizes are a big attraction, the expenses-paid trips to recipe contests are an exciting feature of her life. She’s been all over the country, from New York City and Napa Valley, Calif., and parts in between, to the degree that she’s hard pressed to list states she had not visited.

Paula’s husband, Richard, has come to share his wife’s passion for cooking and entering contests.

“Anything she’s into, I’m into,” said Richard.

Both Paula and Richard have each twice been winners in the Pillsbury Bake-off, considered the granddaddy of cooking contests. It is conducted every two years, and individuals are only allowed to win a maximum of three times, so the McHargues have one more shot apiece.

Richard proudly tells of the time he was one of four contestants who could have won $1 million. He ended up with a $10,000 prize in that one.

Even the McHargues’ son, Matthew, has gotten involved, entering and winning prizes in recipe contests.

While he has embraced cooking, Richard’s main passion continues to be clogging. His claim to local fame is the Richard McHargue Cloggers, a group with participants ranging in age from 5 to adult who perform at many local venues. It’s really a hobby with Richard, who enjoys teaching the dance to anyone interested.

Just as Richard has joined his wife in cooking ventures, Paula has been a loyal clogging partner over the years.

While she has entered thousands of recipe and cooking contests over the years, and won hundreds of prizes, ranging from certificates, to appliances, to cash, it’s not about the winning for Paula … she truly loves to cook, and to experiment on her appreciative husband. She said the cuisine she especially loves is “country cooking.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” said Paula, “I’ve had my share of disasters over the years … Richard doesn’t even get to taste those.”

While she doesn’t enter as many contests these days as she used to, Paula can still be found in her kitchen “laboratory,” cooking up new dishes and anxiously awaiting the mail delivery to check the results of her latest culinary innovations.