Oh What a Night

Little old me with Peter Gee

I spent today in a race against a very sore head after a night of fun at Wrest Point Casino for the Royal Hobart Fine Food Awards. I think I won, but I'm not too sure yet.

I spent four fun-filled hours at Cygnet Market earlier in the day, the market was the most enjoyable yet for me. It seemed to be a day where lots of people I know only by sight came in to say 'hello' and let me know that they had read the article in the Mercury and were really interested in my product and impressed by what was written. David and the kids came in for a visit, which is always lovely, the baker was outside with more rye sourdough and a bread made with White Rabbit Dark Ale. Ed had a fabulous cheese slice which I had for morning tea and I chatted to anyone who was willing to hang about.

Margie arrived to take care of the kids and we were off to Allens Rivulet to pick up Nikki and Gary to head into the awards. The night was looking good and when we arrived things just got better. We had a few welcome drinks and headed in to discover that the MC for the night was none other than Peter Gee. Woo-hoo! (It's the voice)

We had a few bottles of wine and a great meal, the smoked duck from Poachers Pantry in the ACT was excellent as was the Honey Macadamia Nut encrusted chicken and the desserts were delicious, especially the raspberry one.

So I held off heading for the ladies so that I didn't miss anything only to come back in the middle of Judith Sweet's speech about the award categories, of course, hindsight pointed out that I missed out on her commentary on my chocolate entry.

And then the presentations, I spent half my time cheering for the winners that I knew, only to receive a dig in the ribs from the husband telling me to stop being so loud, I drifted off into a happy reverie to receive a whopping dig from, said-husband, telling me to 'get up', 'why?' says I, "because you've won!'. 'What? I've won what?'

Champion Chocolate & Confectionery

And so, the night came to an end, I really wanted to win a Gold Medal, but didn't expect to win the Chocolate & Confectionery Champion's Award after only my first year in business AND I got to have my photo taken with Mr. Gee and I was a happy woman. Cygnet had a great night with Boks Bacon winning Champion Smallgoods, Grahame at Cygnet Butchery for his Tasmanian Wood Smoked Bacon medal and Lyn and Gil from Nuts n More for winning a whopping 19 medals!

The winning entry

The floral centerpiece with the Champion Award