When it comes to entering food competitions, Medford resident Keirsten Petersen is a newbie in every sense of the word.

The 34-year-old had never entered anything in a contest — much less at a county fair. In fact, she’d only recently tried making a handful of the pies, sauces and other items she entered at the Jackson County Fair this week at The Expo in Central Point.

But Petersen went big — entering a whopping 28 baked and canned items at this year’s fair.

And she came home with the coveted title “Master of the Kitchen.”

Descended from a long line of talented cooks, Petersen said she’s known her way around a kitchen since she was tall enough to reach the top of a stove.

After winning blue, red or white ribbons on all but five of 28 contest entries, Petersen could only smile as she talked about the family recipes and favorite treats she spent the past few months perfecting.

“I’m always cooking and baking. I grew up baking all the time. My family would get together every holiday and do sugar cookie decorating. When I was in high school, it’s what I would do when I was upset or bored,” Petersen said.

“My family knew I’d had a bad day if they came home and I had made four kinds of cookies.”

Petersen said she thought about entering even more items than she did, but held back when her husband and other family members raised a collective eyebrow.

Her entries included several jams — redskin plum, seedless blackberry and mulberry — in addition to a slew of cookies, breads and other sweets.

She took home ribbons for masala chai snickerdoodles, vanilla cake-sicles, chocolate espresso caramel brownies, lavender chocolate chip cookies and a spice cake with chai frosting.

She also made apple butter, stewed tomatoes and apple cake from recipes or techniques her family has used since the early 1900s.

Petersen picked 200 pounds of mulberries this summer from a tree in her backyard and turned them into sauces, preserves and a pie with intricate lattice-work on top.

She chuckled at the “Master of the Kitchen” certificate placed in front of her winning items at the fair, saying the “kitchen master” in her own life has always been her gramma, Eagle Point resident Margaret Jackson.

“As soon as I won, I texted my grampa a picture so he could show her,” Petersen said.

“While I was making everything, I’d call and ask her questions or tell her how things were turning out.”

A shift supervisor for Starbucks, Petersen said her Gramma Jackson had taught her and other relatives to harvest and cook from an early age, starting with blackberry picking during long, hot summers.

Jackson said she was thrilled to hear her granddaughter had done well at the fair.

“Keirsten rattled off all this stuff she entered, and I just said, ‘Holy geez,’” Jackson said.

“I love to bake and cook stuff, so, of course, I’ve done it with all the kids. I do it a lot, but Keirsten is really amazing. She probably beats me at most of it.”

Jackson, who grew up on a dairy farm outside Eagle Point, reckons she was too busy working on the family farm and doing chores to enter anything at the fair during her growing-up years.

“I never entered county fairs. My sisters did dairy heifers and stuff like that.

“We were all raised on a dairy farm — five girls and one boy. We grew up helping mow and rake hay, and we helped change irrigation pipes. … Not much time to enter stuff in a fair back then.”

Petersen said she didn’t plan to earn so many ribbons.

“I just figured I’d whip some stuff up and see what happened.”