We three vintage Burwell School volunteers had just finished a pot of mint tea on the back porch, reminiscing about our Burwell exploits with Binnie Davis, who’d returned to her roots in Hillsborough for a visit from Ohio. We were headed for the door when Betty Next Door noted that one of her former students had baked a pie for the pie contest at the Fall Festival at Burwell. None of us knew who’d won, but I had to find out. (Hat tip to Binnie for creating this bit of synchronicity.)
It was indeed Betty’s student, Jennifer Wilson, who won both best pie from the judges (erstwhile Hillsborough Mayors Tom Stevens and Jennifer Weaver and current Mayor Mark Bell—all fine palates) and the attendee tasters who could vote for their favorite. It was a pumpkin cheesecake pie, and people raved about it. And there was an unusual source of vanilla…
I clearly needed to find Jennifer, who grew up on a family farm in Efland with lots of animals including a horse, a garden, and a mom who liked to make cakes and treats for other people. Today all her siblings live within ten minutes of that farm, where her sister carries on the tradition. Jennifer continues to find her mom’s generous baking habits very satisfying. Although she and her baby sister in 2022 won $10,000 in a Food Network gingerbread contest (using a cardamom-lemon glaze on 3-foot-tall garden gingerbread gnomes duded up for the holidays), her real pride and joy in cooking lies in the happiness good food brings other people. She has a Facebook page—Jennifer Huffman Wilson—where she does just that with her thoughts on food and recipes…