Rebecca Reese is a retired home economics teacher originally from Indiana who likes to stay busy by entering cooking contests. Evidently her passion is to figure out new recipes, probably first test them with her family and friends and then take the better ones to actual competitions where her yummy creations go against the rest of the field. As you can tell, she has that competitive streak in her.

Sutter Home Build a Better Burger National Recipe Contest, they sure could shorten the name a little, was held recently in Napa Valley, California, for the 17^thtime. She and four others did battle in the alternative category which limits the burger's beef content to under 75%. She is a great fan of Italian sausage and used that as a starting point, adding to it pepperoncini, Asiago cheese, bread crumbs, but wait a second, if you really like to know the whole basket of items that go into it, just click on the link here, www.buildabetterburger.com/, and voila.

Anyhow, she won the contest with her Little Italy Sausage Burger and took home a cool $10,000 prize. That'll keep her creative juices flowing. And she is going for more. She's also among the finalists in the Bundts Across America challenge, after her Lemon Lime Easter Cake was given the green light in a bake-off in San Francisco. The National Bundt Day is in November when the winners are announced.

Entering recipe contests is good fun for her. If she keeps this up, local resorts might soon give her a call about possible celebrity-flavored employment.