UPDATE: California woman wins Ultimate Oatmeal Throwdown

Editor's note: Laurie Figone of Petaluma, Calif., won the Golden Spurtle cook-off Friday afternoon. She will travel to Scotland to compete in the international Golden Spurtle contest.

Fire up the stove, assemble the ingredients and let the cook-off begin.

On Friday, Aug. 10, three finalists will have 40 minutes to whip up tasty dishes using Bob’s Red Mill’s steel cut oats as a main ingredient; the winner will go on to compete for the coveted Golden Spurtle, in the annual World Porridge Making Championship held in Carrbridge Iverness Shire in the Scottish Highlands.

A spurtle is a Scottish kitchen tool dating back to the 15th century that is traditionally used to stir porridge and prevent it from becoming lumpy.

Cassidy Stockton, who is in the marketing department for Bob’s Red Mill, noted that a committee watched videos from all 92 entries and settled on three finalists: Laurie Figone, from Petaluma, Calif.; Lanie Smith, from Topeka, Kan.; and Kerri Willoughby, from Whitewright, Texas.

The dish had to be in line with cooking traditional porridge on two burners in Scotland, and had to use ingredients that could either be imported or could be obtained locally, Stockton said. The dish also must be completed within a 30 minutes.

“We’re so happy with the quality and culinary vision we’ve seen in the entries this year,” said Matthew Cox, the 2009 World Porridge Making Champion and marketing director at Bob’s Red Mill. Cox was the first American to win the Golden Spurtle prize.

Cox will accompany this year’s winner to Scotland, to offer help and advice, Stockton said.

“We wanted to open up the competition to people outside of the company to get customers involved,” Stockton said. “We love oats, but we don’t know everything about oats and our customers have some amazing ideas. We wanted them to be inspired by our steel cut oats.”

Down-home dishes

Figone described her savory Italian Pinhead Torta as reminiscent of one of her mother-in-law’s dishes.

“She used white rice, eggs, oregano and parmesan cheese. I soaked the steel cut oats in mushroom broth, and then added grated zucchini, sundried tomatoes for a hint of sweetness, mushrooms for earthiness, fresh oregano to awaken the taste buds and parmesan cheese to bring it all together,” she said.

She also noted that pinhead is a common name for steel cut oats.

Figone entered the contest because she is very competitive, and has always wanted to be in an international cooking event.

“I’m also a huge fan of Bob’s Red Mill,” Figone said.

She has a cooking show in her hometown where she visits local farms, brings a product from there back to her kitchen and makes a recipe with it.

“My dish is Paradise Porridge Potstickers, a dessert to be eaten with a fork,” Smith said.

To make the potstickers, the steel cut oats are “cooked to perfection as the warm sweet filling, with fresh mangoes, banana, macadamia nuts and cane juice sugar. Local honey is drizzled over and fresh red raspberries are cut in half lengthwise, to look like little hearts. Then, a small scoop of coconut milk ice cream finishes the presentation,” she said. 

She also said that she really would love to go to Scotland to represent the Bob’s Red Mill team and win the title. 

“This is like the Olympics of the cooking contest world,” Smith said. “I’ve won several national cooking contests, but never one that took me out of the United States. There is no other company I’d be more proud to be affiliated with.”

Willoughby was unavailable to talk about her dish, which is filled with the down-home taste of the South with her Raspberry Oatmeal Dumplings.

National judges

The event will begin at 2 p.m. on Aug. 10, Stockton said, noting that the public is invited, but only the judges will taste the finalists’ dishes.

Competitors will prepare their dishes from scratch and the winner will be announced to bagpipe music, she said.

Judges include Martha Rose Schulman, a food writer for The New York Times; Kim Sunee, a blogger and author of the cookbook “Trail of Crumbs”; and Jocelyn Zuckerman, executive editor of Whole Living Magazine.

Fast Facts

Spar for the Spurtle 2, 2 p.m., Friday, Aug. 10.

Venue: Bob’s Red Mill Whole Grain Store, 5000 S.E. International Way, Milwaukie.Call: 503-607-6455

For additional cook-off information or to view all of the video submissions, visit www.sparforthespurtle.com or www.bobsredmill.com.