By Daniel Nash

The Courier-Herald

A Bonney Lake 9-year old won Red Robin’s fourth annual Kids’ Cook-Off event in Denver, Colo.

Emma Potts prepared her Spicy Honey-Glazed Bacon Burger for a panel of six judges, including Food Network host Robin Miller, at the Dec. 3 event.

Potts was selected as one of 10 finalists to move on to nationals from the local level. She had won the previous round during the summer by submitting her recipe to the Red Robin restaurant in Puyallup.

“I like things that are sweet and salty and I like things that have some spice in them,” Potts said about coming up with the recipe. “So why not put them together?”

On working out the details: “I picked havarti cheese because it is creamy and cool, so it settles the peppers.”

“She watches the Food Network a lot,” her mother Donna Beck added.

Now the fruits of Potts’s labor will be sold in Red Robin restaurants nationwide during the summer of 2010. Fifty cents of each sale will benefit the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Last year, Red Robin raised $65,000, and the chain has raised an estimated $290,000 through the years the contest has been in effect, company spokesperson Jamie Winter said.

Potts also received a portable media player, a plaque, gift cards and a family trip to Universal Studios in Florida.

Potts was excited to go to the contest in Denver, she said. She prepared her precooked burger with an official Red Robin chef as her assistant.

Judges taste-tested each burger and listened to essays of 100 words or less written by each of the contestants.

“My burger is so original it deserves to to win the Red Robin Kids Cook-Off,” Potts said, reciting her speech. “It’s sweet, spicy and everything in between.”

The Spicy Honey-Glazed Bacon Burger will be one of 50 recipes featured in “The Red Robin Kids’ Cookbook.”

The book will be published on the Red Robin Web site in summer 2010, featuring the top recipe entries in the nation.