Virginia sent three cooks to the Pillsbury Bake-Off: Lori Welander of Richmond, Noelle Kompa of Forest and Mike Briggs of Alexandria.

Welander, 49, works as a marketing consultant and does food-oriented volunteer work.

Kompa, 38, spent the last 10 years as a stay-at-home mom raising her four children. In August, she took a job cooking at her favorite restaurant, Isabella's Italian Trattoria in Lynchburg. "I'm not a chef," she said. "I make sandwiches."

Briggs, 40, is the director of information technology at George Washington University Law School.

We caught up with them last week before they headed to Dallas for the Bake-Off.

What was the inspiration for your recipe?

Welander: Quick and easy is always foremost in my mind. If you look at Pillsbury, it's utilizing prepared products. And a crostada is something I love to make when I'm in a pinch for a quick dessert.

Kompa: One day I just wrote down some stuff. It was just a fluke.

Briggs: My fiancée at the time strongly suggested that I should enter the contest. I told her I'd do it, but I was struggling with the recipe.

Then I was traveling in Texas and had some enchiladas with a really great mole sauce. I went back and looked at the qualifying ingredients and saw a lot of them were close to what's in mole.

How many times did you fix your recipe before you entered it and after you'd made the finals?

Welander: Not a lot. It was more of a compilation of ideas that I already use. I was fairly pleased with it the first time. I tweaked a few things and retried it.

There have been ample opportunities recently to take it to Sunday-school potlucks and to my tennis team.

Kompa: I tried it once and wrote down what I was using. I served it to my family and they said, "Wow, it's really good."

Now, everybody keeps asking me to make it. I guess I've made it 12 or 13 times.

Briggs: Before I sent off the recipe, I must have made it about 15 times. It went through 10 or 12 iterations: what meat, more or less spices. You have to make all these decisions about how to get into the finals.

Since I got in, I must have made it 50 times. I can make it in my sleep. I didn't want to be that person on TV who looks completely lost.

How did you start cooking?

Welander: I've always loved cooking. When I was younger I used to love watching Julia Child. My sisters always razzed me. Now they say, "You were smarter than we thought."

Kompa: I was the last of seven children, and when my mother started working, I was about 10. I was interested; I learned from her.

Briggs: Before we got married, my wife and I started spending more and more time cooking as a way to save money and to do something together.

Is this your first try at entering a cooking contest?

Welander: I was a Pillsbury finalist years ago for a yeast roll, Cheddar Dill Knots. That's not the direction people are cooking anymore.

(Welander has won other contests, among them the grand prize in the National Beef Cook-Off in 2003 and a McCormick brand prize in the Southern Living Cook-Off in 2002.)

Kompa: You know what? I frequent the Pillsbury Web site looking for recipes, but I never had any particular interest in the contest. One day I wrote down this stuff and sent it in. It was just a fluke. This was the first time I've ever tried.

Briggs: This is the only cooking contest I've ever entered, and I only entered one recipe. I'm kind of proud of that.

What makes yours a million-dollar recipe?

Welander: It would only be if the judges thought so. Some people may not have tried a crostada or working with almond paste. It might encourage them to try something a little bit different but that's easy and doable.

Kompa: Hmmm. I don't know. I'm just thankful for the experience, and I don't expect to win. It's just a neat thing to have had your recipe chosen from the tens of thousands that were sent in.

Briggs: Because it tastes great and anyone can make it, yet it's not simple. It's not something you're going to try every day.
Contact Jann Malone at (804) 649-6820 or jmalone@timesdispatch.com.