Monday, August 16, 2010

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

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Update

We'll be at Cygnet Market tomorrow (Sunday 14th), but will be away next weekend so are hoping to be back at Salamanca on Saturday, August 28th.

From now we are hoping to be at Salamanca each week, Cygnet Market on the 1st Sunday of each month and Franklin on the last Sunday of each month. We will keep the website and blog up to date with any events etc.

This week we are also planning to update the website with photographs of chocolates and our new packaging.

Link to Mercury article about Cygneture by food writer Elaine Reeves.

www.themercury.com.au/article/2010/07/28/161625_food-wine.html

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Coming Back to Earth


A huge THANK YOU to Eagle Plastics in Hobart for making my display cabinet. It's great. Salamanca is a lot of hard work. Between getting organised to get there and then trying to make logical sentences all day, I was glad to have Nikki with me, I don't think I would have gotten through my first day without her. Cheers.

The market was a hoot and the stall holders couldn't have been more helpful, everyone was incredibly helpful so thank you to all.

I submitted our Cygneture entries for the Hobart Fine Food Awards in five categories today. I meant to take photos before packing them off, but I had too much going on in my cluttered brain. We entered Boxed Chocolates, Leatherwood Honeycomb, Marshmallow (elderberry, elderflower, vanilla & raspberry), Gingerbread and Christmas Pudding (I got 'Best Pudding' at the Huon Show last year with that one, so I'd better do well or I will be very put out!!).

Here's yet another 'thank you' for Bruce and Jasmine at the Old Bank B&B in Cygnet for letting me borrow their thermometer after mine met with a nasty accident at the bottom of a pot of boiling sugar and for trotting down to the 'bottom butcher' to borrow a cryovac pack for me to vacuum seal my pudding for the awards. Funny place, Cygnet, you can need the strangest things and someone will always come up with a solution and everyone is ready to lend a hand.
Well, I'll be at Salamanca again this week, site C51, Davey Street end again, so hope to see you there.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Salamanca! Here we come...

Quick update to confirm that Cygneture will be appearing for the first time at Salamanca Market this Saturday. We will be at Stall C52, Davey Street end, on the building side. Nikki is really excited about the 5 a.m. start for the trip over the mountain.

I'll update what's on after Thursday (next day in the kitchen).