At the Fair, He Takes the Cake

One day in early March, when the Ferris wheel was still in storage and the Orange County fairgrounds in hibernation, Michael Grant came home from the office, dusted off a case of Ball jars and settled down to work.

He has many jars and a big reputation to fill: Grant has entered more than 100 cooking contests at the Costa Mesa fair each of the last five years, and holds the unofficial record for the busiest contestant ever.

Grant starts slowly that first month, with a batch of pickles or preserves once a week. In April, he’s up to two days a week, three in May and four in June. By county fair time in mid-July, he’s a one-man canning factory.

The proof is in the pantry, which is stacked with boysenberry and strawberry preserves, sandwich pickles, sweet pickles, pickled peach halves and 70 varieties of jam. There are rows of canned peaches and plums, apple juice and applesauce, blueberry syrup, enchilada sauce, even lemon garlic vinegar. Close to fair time, he races to finish his pies, muffins and macaroons.

Nearly every square foot of his Garden Grove yard is given over to the garden that fuels his passion. Cookbooks fill two rooms of his home; blue ribbons spill out of envelopes.

“This gives me an outlet so I don’t have to think about anything,” said Grant, 36, a computer security expert at Experian in Orange. “I don’t know why I’m not creative in anything else. That’s just the way it is.”

This year, nearly all of Grant’s 70 or so entries garnered ribbons. His strawberry preserves tied for the Sweepstakes prize. Most are still on display in the Home & Hobbies building at the Costa Mesa fairgrounds.

“He is a legend here,” fair spokeswoman Ruby Lau said. “He’s a Renaissance man; everyone knows him.”

County fairs and their cooking contests are a huge part of American cultural lore, a world of gigantic veggies, amazing cakes and juicy preserves from local kitchens--not to mention tales of duels over which pie is best.

Cook-offs have always been a big part of the annual summer fair in Orange County, once a land of farms, orchards and orange groves. This year, Lau said, there were about 1,800 entries.

Grant may be one of the winningest, but he says that’s not why he enters. He just likes it.

“Through all the experimentation, you get better at it,” he said. “I like trying different things.”

His weirdest creation to date was mango-banana jam. “It didn’t set well with me,” he said. “It was kind of beige-ish brown.”

Nearly everything Grant enters is harvested in his garden--from blackberries to kumquats to pickling cucumbers. He figures he tends 28 types of produce.

He loves the sight of stove burners covered with pots, the smell of strawberries taking over the far reaches of the kitchen, even the feel of tomatoes squishing from his hands into the jars.

“This is where I’m happiest,” said Grant, who can seed a large pomegranate in five minutes flat.

His wife, Connie, isn’t quite so pleased at having her kitchen taken over for months.

“The running joke at the fair this year is that she made him cut back,” Lau said.

Grant admits it’s true. So this year, his entries topped off at about 70 instead of the usual 100 or more.

Blame his mother.

Grant was raised on a farm in Missouri, where his family pretty much lived off the land. His mother did her share of fair competing, and Grant was her top assistant, learning how to peel and cut fruit for canning. Even now, in the weeks preceding the fair, Grant and his mom are on the telephone nearly every day, discussing different fruit combinations or the right way to present green beans.

Not surprisingly, he gives away a lot of his work. What he, his wife and their 2-year-old son don’t eat, he hands out as gifts to friends, neighbors and relatives. Still, there are plenty of leftovers. This very moment, in his garage, he estimates there are 76 cases of canned fruit from last year.

Someday, he and his wife would like to open a bed and breakfast. For now, he’s thinking about that last unplanted patch in his front yard, wondering whether guavas could mature in a year in his garden.

“There are a lot of recipes out there,” Grant said.

The fair runs through Sunday at the fairgrounds, 88 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa. Hours are 10 a.m. to midnight today and Sunday. Admission is $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and $2 for children. Children under are free.