BY LINDA DeNICOLA
Staff Writer

Vera Ciavaglia TINTON FALLS - Seabrook Village resident Vera Ciavaglia loves to cook. In fact, she reads cookbooks with the same voracious appetite with which other people read novels.

Her passion for cooking may be organic, or it may just be that she has been cooking since she was a little girl observing and helping her mother cook for a large family.

Ciavaglia has been acknowledged for her cooking prowess on a number of occasions, but she received top honors for her fudge at the New Jersey State Feder-ation of Women's Clubs annual convention in Atlantic City, earlier this month.

That is not a small feat since first she had to win locally and then compete with seven other local winners.

Vera represented the Shore District and claimed the Grand Ribbon for "Vera's Fantasy Fudge" on May 7, at the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino.

Vera's chocolate, marshmallow fluff and pecan fudge recipe edged out the seven other fudge competitors. She was presented with a certificate to commemorate her grand prize, and stated that she is not a competitive person, but bakes because it comes naturally.

"My love of baking began during my childhood when I spent a great deal of time in the kitchen with my mother," she said.

"I have about 900 cookbooks, which give me various recipe ideas. As for the Fantasy Fudge, I thought to myself, chocolate, marshmallows and pecans are three of my favorite ingredients, so why not?!"

She has won other top honors. Last year, she won a Grand Ribbon for her yeast coffee cake, and she has won nearly 100 first place blue ribbon prizes for her various baked goods during her approximately 40 years in the state federation.

There are approximately 350 clubs within the New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs in New Jersey. The Federation is the largest volunteer women's service organization in the state and a member of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, provides opportunities for education, leadership training, and community service through participation in local clubs, enabling members to make a difference in the lives of others, one project at a time.

Born in Asbury Park and raised in Ocean Township, she has been married to the same man for 44 years. Six years ago they moved to Seabrook Village in southern Tinton Falls.

She explained that everybody knew her mother, Matilda DiLieto. Besides cooking for her family, her mother would cook for church suppers and for anyone else who admired her cooking.

"I always cooked with her. She had 10 kids to cook for. I got along great with her in the kitchen," Ciavaglia said, adding that although her mother was Italian, she did not cook just Italian foods.

"She cooked all kinds of dishes. She made wonderful soups and pastries. She never followed a recipe. She used to say, put in a little of this, a little of that.

"Her rice croquets were one of the best things she made and every time she made them people would ask for the recipe, but she couldn't give it to them. So one day I followed along while she made them and wrote the ingredients and amounts down."

Ciavaglia noted that when you have 10 children, you never throw anything away.

"She would fix it in a different way the next day."

Like her mother, Ciavaglia loves to cook and bake and likes to rewrite recipes.

"I buy cookbooks and read them like a novel. Then I take the recipes and change them around," she said. "It seems like I'm always baking."

Vera's Fantasy Fudge

3 cups sugar

3/4 cup butter

one 5 1/3 oz. can evaporated milk

one 7 oz. jar marshmallow cream

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup chopped pecans

12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Combine the sugar, butter and milk in a sauce pan and bring to a full boil, stirring constantly. Continue boiling and stirring for five minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the remaining ingredients. Beat until well blended and pour into a 9x13 greased pan. Cool at room temperature, cut in squares. Makes 3 pounds.

Bon appetit!