ECU Alum Brings Home the Bacon
LEAH LYON WINS $5,000 PRIZE IN NATIONAL COOKING CONTEST
Leah Lyon kept her big secret for two months. Lyon, an ECU graduate and the project director of two federal grants at East Central University, won another national cookoff last February, the Cacique Go Autentico Recipe Contest. Cacique Cheese announced the winner through a series of six vignettes about Lyon and the three other finalists on the Cooking Channel on Feb. 5. The actual competition was Dec. 7 and 8. She probably will take the $5,000 cash prize because of scheduling conflicts with the other option, a week-long trip for two to Napa Valley and a five-day Culinary Institute of America Boot Camp vacation. Meanwhile, Lyon, who had won her category three times in the biennial Oklahoma Beef Cookoff, took the $1,000 grand prize for the first time on Jan. 22 for her Steak Florentine Orzo with Warm Bacon-Tomato Vinaigrette. She has been a serious competitor for about nine years and enters between 30 and 40 contests each year. So far, she’s won about $80,000 in cash, prizes and trips. With little spare time, she had wavered on whether to enter the Cacique cheese contest. Then she realized she could put together an appetizer using the company’s panela cheese which she frequently uses. “I had fried some of that cheese (earlier) for a softball dinner for my daughter,” Lyon said. “I realized I could just cut it really thin and enter that. I had made fried cheese with
Leah Lyon on the set of the Cacique Go Autentico Recipe Contest, which aired on the Cooking Channel.
Lyon’s award-winning recipe, Shrimp Rajas Al Carbon Panela Tostadito.
Lyon and two of the other contestants getting ready film their cooking segments. 24 The Columns
