HarvestFest Cooking Segment with Laurie Lufkin

Laurie Lufkin will be featured in the 11:30 a.m. cooking segment under the big tent on T Wharf during HarvestFest. The following is an excerpt from a Food for Thought column on Laurie Lufkin by food writer Heather Atwood:

Her mother and grandmother taught her to cook. She is teaching her daughter, 9-year-old Lilly, to cook, but the sensible checkered-apron imagery stops there when describing Essex resident Laurie Lufkin. The energy spilling from her Cape Ann TV cable access program, "Inspired Cooking," should be harnessed and re-sold by National Grid. Laurie Lufkin is an example of someone who has found her niche and is powered by her passion. Her instincts for a good recipe, for taste and texture combinations, make up for her lack of formal education.

Her vivacity is clearly fueled by love; Laurie loves and is brilliant at recognizing a good recipe, and then making it a blue-ribbon winner. Her grandmother's Essex clam cakes for example: Two years ago Laurie took this recipe, added clam broth and cream to her version, and turned it into something Food Network-competitive, landing her on the program's "Ultimate Recipe Showdown — Hometown Favorites." Laurie didn't win the $25,000, but getting to be one of four finalists from around the country wasn't bad for a girl who runs a silk-screen business and whose hobby seems to have long ago out-raced her vocation.

When she insists I understand that her mother taught her how to cook, that she makes wonderful chicken soups, legendary pumpkin and date nut bread, that she made a great dinner every night with few resources, I listen.

Laurie's recipes have appeared in such publications as "Taste of Home," "Family Circle" and will she will be featured in an upcoming issue of "Yankee Magazine."