Sylvia Gonzales wasn't aware of our zucchini recipe contest when she called The New Mexican to tell us about the 6-pound squash her daughter Beth Gonzales had grown in a community garden on Beth's grandparents' land in El Rancho, near San Ildefonso Pueblo.

She just had never seen one that big, she says, and she wanted to share the news.

But visiting Sylvia's Santa Fe home to look at photos her husband had taken of the green giant before they donated it to The Salvation Army, we discovered that she'd had more than her share of adventures with zucchini — and with baking in general.

Beth, a federal investigator for the department of personnel management, grew the giant zuke in a 2,400-square-foot garden shared by four tenants. "We all pitched in to get the ground ready," she says, "we got water to it and we also worked on an acequia to get that prepared. We had been talking about it for a number of years but we actually got it done this year — and it's been a lot of fun," she says.

In addition to "a lot of zucchini," Beth says, the group grew different varieties of tomatoes, cantaloupe, corn, eggplant, sunflowers, chiles, jalapeños, cilantro, four different varieties of squash and a lot of beans.

Even though she gave away a lot of zucchini, Beth says, within a week "they would just get huge ... I got really good at making soups and all kinds of stuff with the zucchini and, of course, giving it away and sharing it."

Sharing is something her mother, Sylvia, 83, knows well. The daughter of one minister and wife of another — the couple just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary — she has spent her life sharing her faith and talents with all comers. A pianist and singer, her work has included teaching music at a conservatory in Mexico and working in women's and children's programs for her church, the Spanish Assembly of God.

When her husband, Jose Gregorio (Brother George) Gonzales retired from the church in Taos where he had been pastor for 30 years, the couple moved to Santa Fe but didn't slow down. Among other "assignments," they were chaplains at Furr's Cafeteria for three years, until new owners eliminated the position. Sylvia also worked for the Thrifty Nickel and took care of her own aged mother for the last few years of her life.

"Serving the Lord for me has meant getting lots of different assignments," Sylvia says with a warm smile.

Her zucchini adventures began the year a parishioner in Taos gave the family a big box of zucchini. After a moment of dismay, she says, "the Lord impressed me to go through my cookbooks" and she made soup, bread, pies — all kinds of things with that box of zucchini. "I was challenged," Sylvia says, "but I used every one of those zucchini. I didn't throw a single one away."

Successfully using all that zucchini taught her that she can look at any food and think of many different ways to use it, she says.

Sylvia has also had many successes baking over the years — with and without zucchini.

She was 8 when her mother introduced her to the kitchen, showing her how to make
tortillas. "I was an only child and spent a lot of time there with her, learning from her," Sylvia says.

In 1984, her sopaipillas won third place at the New Mexico State Fair — a man won first place that year, she says with a giggle. Her lemon meringue pie took first place in its division at the fair in 1987, and in 1995, her zucchini bread was a blue-ribbon winner. She made it with yellow squash rather than green ones that year, she says — something officials says no one had ever done before.

But Sylvia is as quick to share her failures as her successes. She tells the story of the time that she decided to bake a cake when her mother was too busy to help her figure out the recipe. Being young and inexperienced as well as impatient, she added the coffee grounds as well as the brewed liquid to the cake batter. Her mother made her sit and pick out every last bit of grit with a toothpick, she says — which she did, through her tears. A neighbor later pronounced the finished cake one of the best she'd ever had, Sylvia says.

The Gonzaleses were married in September and her husband's birthday was in October, Sylvia says. Having just moved to Taos, she decided to bake a cake she had been making for years for him. But she hadn't realized how the altitude could affect her baking, and the cake fell. "I could have cried," she says. "I was so happy to make him his first birthday cake after we were married, and it was a flop." The next year she made him one of her famous lemon meringue pies for his birthday rather than a cake — something she's repeated every year since.

It's important to people who cook to know that everyone makes mistakes, Sylvia says — that even people who win prizes have failures.

While she no longer works outside her home, Sylvia says, cooking for visitors and taking care of her husband are her current assignments, adding that it's also "a joy to share recipes." That says, she agreed to share her favorite zucchini bread recipe with New Mexican readers.

"I like this bread," Sylvia says. "I have it for breakfast every morning as long as I have some zucchini in the house or the freezer."

SYLVIA GONZALES' PRIZE-WINNING SQUASH BREAD

1-1/3 cup unsifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1-1/3 cups coarsely shredded zucchini or yellow summer squash, lightly packed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan and set aside.

Mix all dry ingredients, except sugar, together thoroughly. Beat eggs until frothy. Add sugar, oil and vanilla. Beat until lemon-colored (about 3 minutes). Stir in squash. Add dry ingredients and mix just until dry ingredients are moistened. Pour into prepared loaf pan.

Bake 40 minutes at 350 degrees, or until toothpick inserted into center of loaf comes out clean. Cool on rack; remove from pan after 10 minutes.