Kazmier will continue journey of trying new cuisines

When The Daily Herald first featured Penny Kazmier as a Cook of the Week in 1999, she showed she was quite inventive when creating dinners for her four children, who then ages 5 to 12.

Sunday night dinners often meant snack night, the table filled with appetizers such as cream cheese topped with cocktail sauce and shrimp and water chestnuts wrapped in bacon and apple slices. His mom’s style rubbed so much on son Kyle that he brought the shrimp appetizer to high school for a Cinco de Mayo celebration.

“Most kids bring chips and salsa,” she adds with a laugh.

Twelve years later, the South Barrington mom showed she hasn’t lost her creative edge, especially when it means preparing an entree for a panel of discerning judges.

After weeks of pairing unlikely ingredients, Kazmier wowed judges one more time to win the title Daily Herald’s 2011 Cook of the Year.

Winning the finals, she said, was like the frosting on the cake, a bonus for doing the cooking she loves to do.

“It’s an emotional thing for me because it makes personal connections,” she said. “When you share a meal with someone, you share more than just food.”

Kazmier’s table may be quieter now as Kyle, 25, and Keith, 23, have moved out and Kailey, 21, attends college.

“I don’t need 9-by-13 pans for every meal anymore,” she said.

But cooking for three, including husband, John, and Kelsey, 18, a senior at Barrington High School, gives her a chance to try dishes she would not try before.

“We had steaks so I thought I’m going to try this horseradish crust I’ve had at a restaurant,” she said. “With six people, my goal was to get the food from wherever I was cooking it onto a plate before it was overdone. Now I can use more finesse because I am not cooking for as many people.”

Kyle Kazmier said his mom has always loved to cook and her willingness to try something new has rubbed off on him.

“I’m more than willing to try her food now,” he said.

Penny Kazmier continues to seek inspiration, getting recipes daily from 10 websites and taking cooking classes. She also gets to cook for a larger crowd and share culinary ideas by belonging to two cooking groups. For a recent meeting she re-created a chocolate ravioli filled with pumpkin that she tried at a New York City restaurant.

She added the group “also exposes me to creative people who have a love for cooking as well who also step outside their comfort zone and then we share that experience and learn.

“I know so many people who are my cooking friends who easily could have been standing there last night,” she said, recalling the Nov. 2 cook-off. “I was just the one who filled out the application.”

During the elmination-style recipe contest, Kazmier impressed the judges in the second round with her dish that worked the given ingredients — vanilla extract, pork chops, ricotta cheese and beets — into apple-and-cheese-crusted vanilla pork chops with roasted beet and cheese stacks with chive oil and cemented her spot in the finals.

“I’ve never used vanilla as a savory ingredient before,” she said. “This really opened my eyes to that. I used it in the cheese and apple mixture on the pork chop and as a marinade on the pork chop. It tasted so good. I was so surprised. I sometimes felt more like a scientist.”

When it came time to face the three other finalists at the live cook-off, Kazmier was grateful to discover the mandatory ingredients — pork loin, hazelnuts, cranberries and chipotle peppers — were all ingredients she loved to use. She also found a trip to visit son Keith in San Antonio, where she spent time cooking in his small kitchen with limited ingredients, helped prepare her for the cook-off in a way she hadn’t expected.

“It forced me to use what I had,” she said.

Kazmier’s dish for the finals was a pork tenderloin stuffed with a hazelnut filling and topped with root beer adobo glaze. Sweet potato hash and cranberry chutney also were on the plate. While she was used to experimenting, the caveat to finish the dish within an hour and using a new induction cooktop added to the pressure.

“I was OK until the last 10 minutes and then I felt chaos,” she said.

When the dish came together, she was pleased.

“I knew what was on that plate was something I would like to eat for dinner,” she said.

While she admits she is shocked to be selected Cook of the Year, what makes her emotional still is to see her family’s reaction.

“Having them be proud of me was so touching that it is hard to put into words,” she said.

The title certainly has boosted her confidence, but Kazmier has no plans to try competition again. She does plan to travel further to explore more cuisines and doesn’t rule out starting a catering business sometime down the road.

“My immediate plans is to go grocery shopping so I can make dinner for tonight,” she said.