Tag: biscuits

South Carolina’s Best in Show

Patty Wentworth has won more than 300 ribbons from the South Carolina State Fair for her cooking and crafts.

Wentworth’s won 300-plus ribbons for cooking, crafts

Patty Wentworth is shown in her Columbia, S.C., home alongside her prized mixer and other cooking tools that have helped her win more than 300 blue and red ribbons from the South Carolina State Fair over the past 40 years. Photo by Travis Bell.

A self-described visual learner, Patty Wentworth often thinks of the others that came before her when she’s in her kitchen or at her crafts table.

She’d watch as her father, Robert, would craft his own fishing lures and replace a faulty carburetor. She’d mentally takes notes as her mother, Margaret Moon Wright, mended a ripped seam or stood at the stove, her biscuits baking.

“My mother made the very best candied yams. And she never used a recipe that I saw. She was just a wonderful cook who could make good food out of whatever,” Wentworth says. “I was fortunate to have those people around me to learn from and also learn that you can do a lot of things yourself.”

Wentworth is one of the top prize winners in South Carolina State Fair history as her handiwork — whether it be her biscuits or a miniature camping scene captured in an old pork and beans can — has captured more than 300 blue and red ribbons over the past 40 years.

Wentworth often starts with a recipe but isn’t afraid to go off-script. For example, a prize-winning candy entry started off as cake.

“It was a terrible mess,” she says. “The cake was just goo. I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, this is not good.’ So, I turned it into candy, rolling it into round balls and then pecans. And it ended up winning the Sweepstakes. That was just a stroke of luck.”

She likes working with miniatures, creating entire Christmas villages out of handmade items. She’s used clay to make Halloween figures, adding moss and sticks from her backyard. She’s painted gourds and rocks and won numerous ribbons for Christmas ornaments and door decorations.

“When you get lost in what you’re doing, it’s a wonderful thing,” Wentworth says.

She has three children, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. In the past, her daughter won a blue ribbon for her biscuits and one granddaughter won a blue ribbon in photography at this year’s fair.

“A little bit of my creativity has been passed down and that’s a wonderful thing to see,” says Wentworth, who won seven ribbons at the 2022 State Fair. “It’s a great thing when your children have inherited your love of art.”

Getting to know Patty Wentworth

Claim to fame: Over the past 40 years, she’s won 300-plus ribbons at the South Carolina State Fair for her baking and crafts. The multitude of ribbons are kept in a drawer in her kitchen.

Day job: She works in the South Carolina Office of the Inspector General handling complaints via the hotline. The agency investigates fraud, waste, abuse, mismanagement and misconduct in the executive branch of state government.

Hometown: Columbia, S.C.

Kitchen essentials?: “Butter makes everything better,” says Wentworth, who swears by Crisco and buying quality, fresh ingredients. A good stand mixer also pays off as she’s had her Kitchen Aid mixer for 30 years.

Editor’s Note: A version of this SC Stories profile was featured in the May 2023 issue of South Carolina Living, a magazine that is distributed 11 times a year to more than 1 million South Carolinians by The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina.

I dreamed of you and your biscuits

Seeing Carl was not unusual. Hearing from Carl was quite unusual.

“I dreamed of you in spectacular color.”

            Carl clutched his backpack to his chest with both hands. He took a step forward. Maybe he was aware of the others. Maybe not.

            “I dreamed of you in this very moment.”

            She raised her eyebrow. Seeing Carl was not unusual. Hearing from Carl was quite unusual.

            “You were making me a biscuit. One of those hot buttered rounds where the strawberry jelly is so thick it leaks and stains the sides. Heavens.”

            Jasmine put a slice of cheese and a wedge of ham between the folds of biscuit and wrapped it in yellow wax paper. She stepped to her left, in front of the pail of potatoes, and Carl followed.

            “You want hash browns,” she asked.

            Carl leaned forward to whisper. “Can you not see?”

            Jasmine sighed. “I don’t have time, Carl. You want hash browns or not?”

            Carl turned and looked at those who stood waiting. The couples with their eyes glued to their cell phones, their hands in a constant scroll. The girl who pulled the string of pink bubblegum from her mouth, wrapped it around her finger in a loop of three and stared at him.

            “You are in my dreams. And, yet, you are here before me, now in this presence, serving me a feast upon which I shall savor and accept with the greatest of gratitude.”

            Jasmine walked to the register and her fingers punched the numbers. Her feet hurt. She’d been making biscuits since 5 a.m. and her baby needed more formula.

            “Three twenty five, Carl.”

            He stood before as he does nearly every morning. He wears the same long coat with the holes in the sleeve. His pants are still dirty and his shoes covered in dirt. His hair is thin on top, greasy and unwashed. He smiles and she sees his teeth stained yellow, one missing, completing the homeless ensemble.

            “I see you every night,” Carl says, reaching his hand inside his pocket, where he digs and digs and digs.

            “Hey buddy,” says the man with the cell phone. “Can you pick it up?”

            Jasmine smells him and she wonders if he joins the others under the overpass by the interstate. She sees them when she drives to pick up her daughter from her mother. Carl is here every morning and he’ll shyly slide a quarter across the counter and ask for a cup of coffee. Never before has he asked for a biscuit.

            He pulls his hand from his trousers and his palm is empty. He raises his eyes and she notices they are brown, as brown as her baby girl’s.

            Jasmine pushes the biscuit across the counter to his waiting hands. And he smiles.

            “You do see. My dream angel.”  

NOTE: The above work of fiction came from a writing prompt presented during a recent Pen to Paper Live session hosted by the Charlotte Lit organization. You can register here. In the session, presenter Kathie Collins challenged us to think of synchronicity. As writers, we are always excavating something or using our writing to explore something inside us.