Sweet and spicy for health

A Newport Beach woman will have one of her culinary creations featured on the menu of a prominent chain restaurant in South Coast Plaza after being selected from a pool of 25 contestants in a cooking competition.

Doris Kwon, who lives in Newport Coast and teaches cooking classes at Sur La Table in Corona del Mar, edged out the other three finalists in a chile-themed dessert-making contest at Z’Tejas restaurant Wednesday night.

Kwon’s chocolate crème de pot, flavored with ancho chiles, will be featured on the restaurant’s special menu in September along with other peppery items. Every chile-flavored dish purchased from the menu will raise $1 for cystic fibrosis research.

“I thought this would be nice for summertime, to have a chilled dessert,” Kwon said of her entry.

The money brought in by the sale of dishes goes toward the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s local chapter, which spans Orange County and the Inland Empire and raises more than $3 million a year, said Colleen O’Higgins, the executive director of the local chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Last year the Z’Tejas fundraiser earned about $2,500 for the charity it benefited, organizers estimated.

Veronika Quirin, 12, lives with cystic fibrosis, but you wouldn’t know it unless she told you. The energetic, confident and outgoing girl helped judge the desserts along with a panel of seven other women, mostly food critics and dignitaries.

Her life is just like any of her peers’ lives except for the massive amounts of medication she has to take, Veronika said. She undergoes two 45-minute breathing treatments every day and takes 40 pills to help her digest food that her body doesn’t produce the enzymes to deal with.

Much of Veronika’s childhood was spent in and out of doctors’ offices with severe stomachaches and nagging coughs. Doctors thought she just had allergies and lactose intolerance, until she was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at 9. Her mother, Janine, immediately started researching the disease.

“I just saw the word terminal and I got so scared,” Janine said.

A lot of productive research has lead to an increased understanding of the condition and now patients have a longer life expectancy and an easier day-to-day life than they did a few decades ago.

“Twenty-five years ago, 18 was the age that kids lived to be. Now in our lifetime we’re confident we’ll find a cure,” O’Higgins said.

According to O’Higgins, 90% of the money raised by foundation goes to pharmaceutical companies to help them fund research into cures. When asked if she thought a cure would be found in her lifetime, Veronika crossed her fingers tightly.

ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at [email protected].