Mother, daughter cook up friendly rivalry at fair
By KIM SKORNOGOSKI, Tribune Staff Writer

Great Falls Tribune (Covering Great Falls and northcentral Montana)
August 4, 2005

Louise Hachigian ignores what the other 20 competitors concoct in
the wheat and barley cook-off.

All but one, anyway.

“Just her,” Hachigian said, holding up her hand to hide who she
pointed at. “I like to rock her boat.”

Yanking flour, measuring spoons and a mixer out of a plastic storage
tub nearby, Aimee Hachigian-Gould just as passionately wants to best
her mother.

For the past 20 years, the Ulm women have challenged each other in
culinary contests at the Montana State Fair, racking up dozens of
ribbons and prizes.

Sunday at the Spam cook-off, Aimee took second; her mom took third.

Louise Hachigian couldn’t compete in the fudge face-off Monday, having
won the year before. Judges decided Aimee’s fudge was this year’s best.

Throughout the week, they’ll see who’s the best with beef, pork,
yeast and chocolate cake.

The family hasn’t had to buy sugar in five years. They just use the
pounds won at the fair.

“Some years you’re going to get the blue, some the white, and sometimes
you walk,” Aimee Hachigian-Gould said. “It’s a competition for myself,
to see if I can do better than I did last year.”

Outside the live daily cook-offs, both women enter jams, jellies,
candies and baked treats at the State Fair.

With the clock ticking Tuesday, the two cooked side by side to see
whose wheat would reign.

Calling up an old family recipe, Aimee made Armenian lavash, a cracker
bread, to dip in hummus and baba ganoush, an eggplant-based sauce.

Louise aimed to please the judges’ sweet tooth, baking an apple and
almond tort with a wheat-flour crust.

Each woman approaches the competition differently ~W Louise is careful
and precise, where her daughter is a bit frantic, shouting orders to
her 12-year-old twin sons, Andrew and Brandon, who also competed in
the wheat- and barley-a-thon.

Louise came to the Family Living Center with her ingredients measured
in jars and containers in three plastic bags.

“I don’t wing it here ~W not at competition. At home I do,” Louise
said. “You can’t fool around.”

“No fear, ma,” Aimee shouts as she races by, a cooler in her
hands. “You just can’t have any fear.”

With just a half-hour to go, Aimee was digging around in her pickup
truck for a 3-foot-long, broomstick-thick roller to press her dough
so thin you could read a newspaper through it.

Andrew takes after his grandmother in his cooking style, carefully
following instructions until the end. Brandon tends to get distracted,
Louise notes.

The fraternal twins have a competition of their own, though neither
will say who’s better.

“It’s a draw,” Brandon said.

The boys first entered dishes in the fair at age 2, winning their
first ribbons the following year.

By 8, they persuaded the culinary department to waive the age
requirement and let them cook in one of the live, daily competitions.

“It’s part of the fun. It’s why I come,” Andrew said of the brotherly
rivalry.

The boys take sides as to who is the best cook when it comes to their
mother and grandmother; Andrew pairs up to assist Louise, and Brandon
is his mom’s partner in a yeast competition later in the fair.

“I suppose they’re really about the same,” Andrew said. “My mother
was taught by my grandmother, so I suppose it’s all the same.”

Even in the heat of battle, the mother and daughter lend each other
a hand ~W or an ingredient.

Louise dug out a rolling pin from Aimee’s storage tub. And late in
the contest while waiting for her tart to bake, she casually flipped a
piece of her daughter’s lavash frying on a grill while Aimee scrambled
to roll more dough.

And as she sweated to create an unbeatable tart, Louise stopped to
point out her daughter and grandson’s ribbons displayed in glass
cabinets.

“This is Aimee’s, and this is Aimee’s,” she said, pointing at canned
cauliflower and carrots.

Aimee won overall canning this year. Andrew won overall youth. And
Louise coyly points out, she won overall candy.

With wheat and barley judging wrapped up late Tuesday, the mother
and daughter officially tied for second place. However, judges gave
one woman a 92 and the other a 92.3.

To keep the rivalry alive, we won’t say who earned what score.

“It’s just so much fun,” Louise said.

“You’re doing it for yourself. I just put my whole heart into it,”
Aimee added.