Countywide : Winner Shares His Recipe for Victory

The ground underneath Lou Delmonico’s Anaheim Hills home is still shifting a year after a rain-induced landslide caused major damage to the house and other homes in the Avenida de Santiago neighborhood.

He wakes up mornings to find new cracks in the walls, and all he can do is take a paintbrush and cover them. It’s so depressing, he says.

But around the stately Tudor house with a spectacular kitchen view of the San Bernardino Mountains and Mt. Baldy, the apple, plum, apricot, orange and nectarine trees are again laden with fruit.

Tomatoes are ripening on the vine. Pepper, squash, cantaloupe, lima beans, carrots, basil and an assortment of herbs grow on the patio and among the trees.

This garden bounty has helped keep his frustrations in check, Delmonico says. And from this crop, he has concocted jellies, jams, marmalades and chutneys that so impressed judges at the Orange County Fair.

For the first time in the fair’s 100-year history, a man has won the sweepstakes in the amateur preserved-foods competition. Delmonico, 53, chief executive officer of a Costa Mesa-based computer company, broke the tradition.

He won 12 blue ribbons and topped five divisions, submitting the best entries in jams, potpourri, fruits and fruit juices, fruits and vegetables, and vegetable juices.

Of his 43 entries, 31 won him ribbons, earning 89 points to win the sweepstakes. Paula Anderson of Lake Forest was second with 52 points and Dawn Dunn of Laguna Niguel was third with 32 points.

“If there’s any secret at all, it’s that I grow most of the stuff I use,” said Delmonico, adding that some of his happiest moments are spent in the kitchen, concocting culinary treats for his friends.

He said it’s not odd that a business executive like him could be good at making jellies and jam, an activity traditionally considered a woman’s preserve.

“I like food, and I love to cook,” said Delmonico. “Food and cooking is a social activity. I’ve made a lot of friends as a result of my trees, my jams and my jellies.”

A native New Yorker, Delmonico started planting trees 10 years ago. Now, he has more than 100 fruit trees, including peach, plum and avocado.

Whenever he needs a fruit or vegetable, he just steps outside his kitchen. But he’s picky. He says he uses only the best. When he has to buy, he doesn’t mind traveling to get what he wants.

Delmonico went to Little Saigon in Westminster to buy live blue crabs for his entry in the potpourri division. Using a recipe he learned from his grandmother, Delmonico entered a dish of cracked crab leg in spicy tomato sauce and won the division.

Taste and appearance are the keys to a winning entry, he says. The taste may be heavenly, but if presented poorly it has no chance, he says.

“You want every element of the process perfect,” Delmonico says. “How you prepare the fruit, the size of the slices, the size and shape of the jar, how the fruit will look inside the jar . . . everything is considered.”

Delmonico says he plans to enter the Los Angeles Fair in September, just for fun. “It’s a wholesome activity,” he says. And it takes his mind off the cracks in the walls.