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Saturday, September 25, 2010 – Daily News – 1B 2010 Tehama District Fair Miss Tehama County crowned The Daily News’ daily guide to the best of Tehama County on display By TANG LOR DN Staff Writer After an evening of song, dance and prom dresses, a new winner was chosen to represent Tehama County. Kerry DeFonte was crowned Miss Tehama Coun- ty 2010. “It’s not that I’m feeling overwhelmed, because I’ve done this before, but I feel like I’ve accomplished some- thing really great,” DeFonte said. She was the second alter- nate in last year’s competi- tion. This year, she also won the Miss Congeniality Award. Thursday’s competition, during the opening night of the Tehama District Fair, only featured three of the nine areas in which the contestants were being judged. Overall the contestants did a really great job and the judges had a tough decision to make, Miss Tehama County Scholarship Program Director Sonja Akers said. DeFonte and the rest of the royal court will go on to par- ticipate in a year of activities involving community service. DeFonte looks forward to starting a Relay For Life team, she said. She is the 18-year-old daughter of Robert and Lisa DeFonte of Red Bluff and is in her first semester at Shasta College, where she is study- ing to be a dental hygienist and minoring in music. Daily News photo by Tang Lor Kerry DeFonte receives her Miss Tehama County 2010 crown from last year’s winner Paige Prinz. Linda Jo Bennett was first alternate and Samantha Man- dolfo was second alternate. Bennett received the Jen- nifer Williams Award for the highest score in talent and the Linda Philips Award for hav- ing the high grade point aver- age. Other girls who competed included Alora Holm, Lauren Richards, Kayla Troxell and Rachael James. ——— Tang Lor can be reached at 527-2153, Ext. 110 or by e- mail at tlor@redbluffdailynews.com. Funnel or Fry? When cravings attack By GEOFF JOHNSON DN Staff Writer The difference between fry bread and funnel cakes is the sweetness of the bat- ter. Or Canada and Pennsyl- vania. Or hundreds or thou- sands of years. It all depends on how you look at it. The deep fried dough desserts are both on the menu at the Tehama District Fair. Both can be consumed with cinnamon or powdered sugar. Both cost about the same and take up the same space on a plate. But their origins and the paths they’ve taken from tradition to treat cross coun- tries and cultural bound- aries. Native Kneading About an inch tall and solid all the way through, fry bread makes for the heavier of the two and more versatile than funnel cake. With honey, cinnamon or powdered sugar the crunchy, doughy product can be served as a dessert or double as a meal with cheese, beans, meat sour cream and more in what midway regulars will recog- nize as an “Indian taco.” Sequoia Schoonover, owner of 7 Palms, Inc. and Munch-a-Bunch, is a descendant of Sioux and Choctaw tribes and said fry bread took on different forms with different Native American groups. The bread, common at pow-wows, can be served spicy or sweet, Schoonover said. It was the latter that took off in Canada where it was served as a “Beaver Tail.” Fry bread has the brown tint of a donut but is harder and tougher on the outside, with a thick crust more like- ly to break than bend. Its yellow insides are soft and moist, somewhere between batter and bread. The dough Cleans & Repairs Pellet Stoves Chimney Service (530) 527-7928 BOB HUBBARD Red Bluff & Delivery Available • FREE PILLOWS • FREE DELIVERY • FREE DISPOSAL With purchase of Tempurpedic mattress only. FURNITURE DEPOT MATTRESS 235 So. Main St., Red Bluff 527-1657 MON.-THURS. 9:00-6:00 • FRI. 9:00-7:00 • SAT. 9:00-5:00 • SUN. 11:00-5:00 NORTH VALLEY MON.-FRI. 9:00-5:30 • SAT. 9:00 -5:00 • CLOSED SUNDAYS 632 Main St., Red Bluff 527-5837 Mattress Sets & Adjustable Bed Financing is neither sweet or nor sour. The dish will be served up today and Sunday at the Tehama District Fair and will likely be back at the Red Bluff Round-Up Rodeo. Better than bratwurst? The path of funnel cakes is as long, if not as winding, as the batter used to make the tubular treat. Lorrie Sutter, owner of Funnel Cake Express, said funnel cakes can be traced back to Pennsylvania, where German immigrants, sometimes mistakenly referred to as “Pennsylvania Dutch,” funneled and fried Fry Bread the dessert. Eventually it reached the boardwalks of the east coast, she said. The treat’s westward movement was gradual. Twenty years ago, Sutter was still giving out samples and being greeted by skepti- cal gawks. Today a packed Bay Area fair will see a funnel- cake line that stretches back Funnel Cake as far as 30 people, she said. More clearly a dessert than fry bread, a funnel cake is made with a sweet batter run through a funnel into hot oil. The end result looks like a pile of noodles thick- er than a pen, deep-fried and stuck to itself. Its tubes are thick and spongy and covered by a light crust. Even the small- est piece of cake has a spring to it, pushing back against your teeth as they tear it up. Funnel cake is served with powdered sugar, cinna- mon, fruit and chocolate toppings, the heavier of which may give the desert a kind of pie sensation, Sutter said. Which fried confection should you eat first? Sutter may be biased but there was no mistaking her opinion. Asked why people should come to her booth, she turned her back to the window, revealing the com- pany motto: “Life is Short. Eat Dessert First.”