SLAW AND ORDER

Frontiersman

PALMER — When he showed up to have his massive cabbage weighed at the 16th Alaska State Fair Giant Cabbage Weigh-Off Friday, Steve Hubacek thought he might be looking at a personal best.

For Hubacek, that’s saying something. The Valley cabbage guru has been a contender for years and taken home top honors multiple times. In 2009, he broke the world record for biggest cabbage — twice. His current world record is 127 pounds.

He knew it was dicey and made sure the cabbage would be weighed as soon as possible after being taken out of the ground to avoid losing any ounces to dehydration. Announcers Friday told the crowd any chance they got that a world-record cabbage might be in the building. But alas, it was not to be.

There were no new world record holders in the corral Friday night, but the cabbage wranglers had their work cut out for them, hauling more than 700 pounds of cabbage over the course of an hour. Hubacek was responsible for 126.4 of those pounds, which means he was about a half-pound shy of taking home a new record as cabbage king.

“I wanted 130!” Hubacek said, smiling mock-petulance as folks stopped to congratulate him.

The cabbage almost didn’t make it to the fair Friday. Hubacek said he dropped it as he was trying to load it into the truck.

“Luckily it landed on the plastic (sheeting used to carry the vegetables) and didn’t fall apart,” he said.

Given more time, he said he could have blown his own world record out of the “garden.”

“If this was a mature cabbage it would’ve been 150 pounds, easy,” Hubacek said.

Indeed, the head only started showing up in August. The way to tell the vegetable is mature, he said, is to tug on the leaves inside. They were loose on this cabbage. They firm up later in the growing process.

Still, he said, in terms of volume rather than weight, it’s the biggest cabbage he’d ever grown.

“As for the physical size and the beauty of it, I’m pretty happy with it,” Hubacek said.

All night people were asking him if it’s true what he said that he might be bowing out of the cabbage competition. Hubacek was cagey, though, saying he might be taking a break, telling news reporters he wanted to see what he could do if he didn’t have to cut his cabbages to bring to the fair. He also said the competition isn’t quite as dramatic as it used to be; it used to be just a pound or two between first and second. That’s no longer the case.

Scott Robb, Hubacek’s closest competitor and a sometimes first-place finisher in the weigh-off, said before the competition that he would be lucky if he hit 100 pounds. He jokingly needled cabbage wranglers for a sneak peak when they brought his head back from the scales, knowing full well the wranglers are sworn to secrecy until the very last moment.

As it turned out, his cabbage weighed a respectable 103.8 pounds. He told the crowd he felt great, having outdone his personal best and finally cracked that elusive 100-pound mark.

As he shook Hubacek’s hand, Robb said he was happy to be closing the gap, with just 22.6 pounds separating their entries rather than the 43-pound whipping Hubacek doled out in the 2009 competition.

In third place was young up-and-comer Lauren Guinotte, whose cabbage weighed 90.6 pounds. If things keep going her way, Robb and Hubacek have something to fear in her gardening. She said she’d weighed one last week at 74 pounds.

“Before that, my best was 64 pounds,” she said.

Despite only being 21 years old, she said she’s been growing big cabbages like this for a decade, cultivating the massive vegetables in her Palmer backyard. She said she was happy to have placed in the competition, after ended up just a couple pounds out of the running last year.

“That hurt,” she said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.

Cabbage Borscht

What can you make with a 126-pound head of cabbage? How about a recipe for cabbage borscht that serves 504 people?

Ingredients

• Steve Hubacek’s winning 126-pound cabbage

• 39 gallons of broth, (from powder is fine)

• 63 beets, grated

• 63 onions, grated

• 378 tomatoes, diced

• 2 pints of salt

• 4 pints of lemon juice

• 4 pints of sugar

• 63 dashes of pepper

• 63 dashes of celery salt

Directions

Add the vegetables, salt and pepper to the broth. Cook 25 minutes or until soft. Add lemon juice and sugar. Cook five more minutes. Serve hot.