Sex at the bake-off

In addition to her recipe being quick and easy, it also has the lowest fat and sodium content in the category in which it is entered, the newly created "Lighter and Luscious Main and Side Dishes" category. This is the category that some of the old hands at the bake-off are handicapping to be the winning category, unlike the usual gooey desserts that take the million-dollar prize. I know why the desserts always win. The desserts win because desserts are sexy, and repressed ambition and sexual desire are obviously what lurk behind this bake-off in the first place.

Before Pam and I even left for Orlando, I had an inkling of the darkly competitive nature of the mostly female contestants. Pam joined a tight Internet chat circle of bake-off finalists, all of whom were Sally Fields-like in their giddiness. There is something about the nature of women as they compete that demands that they pretend not to be competitive at all. Beauty pageant contestants are forever proclaiming that they are "just happy to be here" and are hoping that the other, more deserving girls will win.

Men don't do this. You never hear Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield shyly proclaiming that they are "Just excited to be included in the fight." No, they explain that they will kick each others' asses, which is surely what these women are really thinking.

I get some proof of this when Pam announces to her chat circle that she is one of three entrants who will be featured with a color photograph and a perky Q&A in the front of the contest cookbook. As she announces this to her cooking chums, she is greeted with the electronic equivalent of sorority house squeals of congratulations. However, later in the day she is accidentally blind copied with a vicious screed of correspondence from the other women wondering, "What's so great about her? Who does she know?"

Pam politely responded to all to the catty e-mail from her tight circle, shyly wondering if she was supposed to be copied on it. Her inquiry was met with shocked silence. In the bitchy round of e-mail that was mistakenly sent her, her baking sorority sisters had concluded that Pam was selected to be featured because she was from California, which has more grocery stores than any other state. Which may in fact be the reason.

Once at the bake-off, I am constantly reminding myself of my commitment to put prejudice aside and remain fair and impartial toward all the other contestants. There is, however, one contestant who is severely trying my impartiality, mostly because she is just such a bitch. I call her "Iowa" because that's where she's from. "Iowa" is a dessert maker, and she lists her occupation as "self-employed screenwriter," (something, as Pam points out, which is very similar to being a self-employed supermodel, "What, I hang around my house all day and try on clothes, I'm a supermodel!"). This makes me defensive of my friend Pam, who is a real screenwriter, who actually gets paid by people other than herself.

In Orlando, I am staying at the Hard Rock Hotel, which is directly across the street from the Portofino Hotel, where all the official bake-off activities will take place. The Hard Rock is built around the theme that you, the guest, are a drug-crazed rock star who only emerges from your narcotic haze to have wild monkey sex with groupies before, during and after your big show. Even though most of the people staying at the hotel are pallid, shy Midwesterners, any one of whom could be a naked body double for the Doughboy should he ever need such a thing, they are treated by the spiky-haired hotel staff like Keith Richards on a bender.

After checking into the hotel, I head over to the Portofino and hang around the pool, hoping to get bake-off dirt from the contestants who are sunning and drinking margaritas on the fake "beach" that the cement-filled swamp of Orlando is unable to provide. I am amply rewarded when I overhear a conversation between two of the participants talking about exactly the kind of cut-throat attitude I'm looking to unearth. The two women, who are drinking margaritas in the hot tub, describe how someone put threatening notes under the hotel room doors of the other contestants a few years back.

These women are returning finalists, and one of them is a legacy, because her mother had also been a finalist. There is a disturbing number of these people in the contest. The rules, which are designed to discourage legacies, state that a person can only be a finalist three times, and after the third time, not only can they never return, but no one they are related to by blood or marriage can ever attempt to enter again.

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