At Lincoln Park Presbyterian Church, one of the things that always makes people smile is the baked goods of one Mia Prekop.
“Mia, oh maybe about two years ago at a church potluck there was a pie bake-off contest, and she made a jello pie,” said Gary Smith, a member of the church for more than 30 years. “I love jello, and I thought it was the most awesome thing. So that was when Mia first came to my attention as someone who could do something in the kitchen.”
Most recently, there was a cookie exchange after Sunday service and Mia’s holiday-themed frosted cookies? By the end of the event, the plate was spotless.
“The thing that’s impressive about Mia, to me anyway, is she’s really good at it,” said her father Hank Prekop. “And this is true for anything, you have to have a personal passion for it, in order to want to spend your own personal time on it, where it doesn’t seem like work, and you just do it on your own. And that’s what she does.”
What’s even more interesting is her age.
“I’m 12,” said the young Prekop.
That’s right, not quite old enough to be considered the target audience for the new Sherlock Holmes movie.
A set of Mia's cupcakes (Photo courtesy of Mary Prekop for RedEye)
“I’ve been cooking and baking since I was really really little,” she said. “But I started really, really getting intothe whole baking thing last year….[in] sixth grade. Because everything was super, super stressful last year, and I found that if I bake, I am more happy.”
Cooking was not just a passion she stumbled on to, however. Her family has long history with food, and both generations above Mia – her father and grandmother – have helped usher the young chef along.
“It’s just always been a part of our life together, and it wasn’t just baking,” said her grandmother, Anne Hunt. “From the very beginning, starting out with things like Hello Kitty pizza…and I think early on we started doing, I’d make the cookie dough and then they could cut out stuff. We have a big huge collection of cookie cutters that go back probably to my great grandmother. So I’d make the dough and then they’d cut them out and then decorate them.”
Hunt is no slouch in the kitchen herself. She served as the food editor of the magazine Sphere for a number of years, and has co-authored multiple books about nutrition. So there was plenty of cooking to take part in while Mia was growing up, since they live only a floor apart in the same building.
“We always knew when she was baking because you could smell it all over the house,” Mia said. “And so every day I would go and say, ‘Are you baking today?’ And whenever she was I would always go straight upstairs after school and help her bake. It made me feel good because I loved it.”
Other times, it is Mia’s father taking the lead.
“It is handed down, and that’s always been an important part of it, is handing it down,” Hank said. “My mom taught me, so I’ve gone out of my way to make sure my kids do it.”
His mother was not a professional, he said, but a “really, really good cook.” Growing up, they did not have to finish eating everything, but they always had to at least try it. That rule has continued with Mia and his other daughter, Zoe.
“At this point, they actually like trying the goofier stuff,” he said. “We were in Europe, and they were like, we want to try snails. They already had frog legs, they had beef brains. And they realize the stuff can be great.”
Part of what that has done, explained Hunt, is give the family a palette to draw from when cooking for themselves.
“I think one of the things that [Hank has] done and really stressed is, how does it taste? What’s the flavor? And does it need something?” Hunt said. “What would make it better if you didn’t like it, or how does it compare to other things you’ve had?…Would a little bit of salt do this, or a little bit of vinegar do this, or what, that changes it from just ordinary.”
It is a lesson Mia took to heart recently when putting together a pie for the church’s annual pie contest and fall festival. In previous years she had made a s’mores pie – but was not all that thrilled with it.
“It was really simple and never all that great,” she said. So she decided to change it.
“I found this recipe for chocolate Nutella cookies, and I decided, how can I make this pie recipe better? Oh, let’s use the goo that we use to make those cookies. So I put that in, I took the graham cracker crust and put the chocolate Nutella filling in, and then marshmallow cream on top, and I was like, this is fun.”
And while the results are usually delicious – “You might want to become friends with us,” Hunt said – for Hank and Hunt, it is about watching another generation embrace something they also love.
“The fact that she enjoys it so much, that’s the part that’s so much fun,” he said. “And as she grows and progresses she obviously will get better and learn all sorts of other things, but just the fact that she has that much passion, that you actually have to stop her at a certain point.”
Said Hunt, “I think it’s something that really binds us together.”
And churchgoers like Smith don’t seem to mind.
“Anne being a fabulous cook and her son in law Hank is a great cook, and th grandkids are doing all sorts of great things, so they always have good food,” Smith said while cleaning up after the cookie exchange. “She’s got great teachers all around her. I expect great things from her. I expect great things from all the Hunt grandchildren.
“Look at the example of what they’re following.”
