Grow - Bake - Cook Award is back....

GROW BAKE COOK AWARD BACK FOR SECOND YEAR!

Calling all amateur artisans! The exciting GROW BAKE COOK enterprise initiative to seek out a new food producer from the ranks of skilled amateurs is back for a second year. Following last year’s success, the competition is all set to go ahead again, this time backed by Failte Ireland and the new enterprise team at Cork City Council.

The award will run as part of the huge and exciting programme for the eatCORK! Food festival, which takes place from 23^rd-26^th September 2010. This festival celebrates the city’s lively food heritage at grassroots level – and as part of that, Grow Bake Cook will headline the competition element of the festival weekend. This award was devised last year by food enthusiast Elke O’Mahony, and food writer Dianne Curtin, and born of the need to create new career prospects in a time of recession. This year, we hope the initiative will once again unearth a new artisan, who will win the chance to be helped on the ladder to becoming a successful food producer. A prize of mentoring support from Failte Ireland Southwest is a huge boost for this year’s winner, offering practical help to branch into food production as a full time career. Failte Ireland Southwest run a successful hospitality industry training centre in Albert Road Cork, managed by Oliver Sullivan. The centre trains a large number of students in the hotel and catering industry, and offers valuable business mentoring too.

The Grow Bake Cook winner this year will have support from the mentoring team at Failte Ireland Southwest, in order to be able to turn their amateur enthusiasm for food into a real career in the future. Guidelines for entry are strict – entrants must not be earning more than 20% of their income from producing foods at present. This competition is open to all forms of food production – growing, cooking or baking, as the name suggests. Certain categories apply within this, and these are attached. Successful entries will be shortlisted, then invited for judging on Thursday 23^rd September, prior to the launch of the festival. Applicants MUST be available to attend the judging at The Farmgate Café, English Market.

Judges this year are Ruth Healy, successful marketing guru, Ballymaloe Cookery School graduate, and owner of Urru Culinary Store Bandon. Ruth’s valuable advice on food packaging, quality, and prospective saleability of product is second to none. She is joined on the judging panel by Oliver Sullivan, from Failte Ireland’s training centre in Albert Road. Oliver has many years experience in training students in all aspects of hospitality industry. Our third judge is Iain Flynn, of Flynn’s Kitchen. This highly respected artisan producer on the Cork scene made the hugely successful transition from working full time as a chef, to starting his own business producing an own label range of ready meals, sauces, preserves and chutneys, now sold at various outlets and through Cork’s farmer’s market network. Entrants can avail of the huge expertise and valuable advice of all three judges on the judging day.

So if you fancy getting a foot on the ladder to food producing success, we now invite prospective entrants to apply in writing to the email below, with details of their products, list of ingredients and methods of making, and as much detail as possible to back up the application. We are really looking for the wow! Factor here – so if you think you and your food product has it – please apply! Applicants from last year can apply again this year – hopefully with some new and exciting developments to their range.

Please contact Elke O’Mahony on email grow.bake.cook@gmail.com

Failte Ireland

In the aftermaths of the GBC Award, we were invited yesterday to the Failte Ireland Training Centre in Albert Road. Oliver O'Sullivan, the director of the facility, showed us around. Failte Ireland has different courses on offer Professional Cooking, Culinary Arts, Bar Skills and Restaurant Skills. We were all also treated to a lovely lunch cooked by the 'head chef' - Trainer, Kevin - consisting of rabbit terrine served with chutney, monk fish tails served with mashed potatoes and a herbed oil, pear tart tatin served with lavender-vanilla ice cream and honey....scrumptious. We were served by the students as part of their 'real-life' experience and they could have competed with most restaurants.

We were also catching up with our past contestants and let me tell you that they are doing so well. Emily (summer puddings and ice cream) is now part of the Ballydehob Food Group (keep the 3rd October free as they have a lovely event in Ballydehob) and is busy organising with them. Pat (Worcestersauce and Cafe de Paris butter) has investigated some bottling options and is in negotiations with Urru - and I believe after yesterday with Failte Ireland :-), Francis has won a cooking competition with the Evening Echo in the meantime with her amazing Spanish Omelet, Chris is in contact with Teagasc about his mentoring and Annette was dead busy during the summer as well.

The 'Round' Table was a great opportunity for all to catch up with everyone, keep us updated and do some networking. Dr Angela Sheehan from UCC (program director for the Specialty Food Production Course) was also present and informed us about the course and grants available. There are still places available, so get in touch with Angela to secure your place.

All in all a great way to spend lunch. Good luck to all involved - especially the new students in the Failte Ireland Training Centre - and keep me updated.

Grow Bake Cook Award - The Final

Sorry for the long delay in writing about the final of the Grow.Bake.Cook Award from last Sunday but it took until now to get the pics in.

First of all, what a turnout. The day started of awfully as the sky was grey and we had difficulties putting our gazebo up (thanks to Steve who was a a saint). Anthony from Umara Smokehouse gave us a table and an umbrella but we needed something a bit stronger to keep the rain out. We asked all participants to come from 12pm onwards for registration but we only managed to get everything set up 30 mins later. But fair due to you all - everyone was so patient and kept coming back.

What an amazing talent is out there - we couldn't believe our eyes when we were finally able to display all the food people brought. From homemade breads to flavoured oils to the most creamiest icecream. I was gobsmacked to be honest. It was simply mindblowing.

Our three judges, Ed O'Neill from Teasagc, Ruth Healy from Urru (Bandon) and Declan Ryan of Arbutus Bread were just as amazed as Dianne and myself were. The bad weather didn't kill the spirit of all people involved and we started tucking in. The judges 'grilled' the cooks, bakers and growers and wanted to know everything that was to know about the products.

I had my camera with me but was too busy to take any pics of the participants which is a pity really but we have some nice ones anyway. Let me introduce you to the cooks, bakers and growers (in no particular order):

Emily

She brought us steamed puddings (midsummer berries & West Cork Strawberries) which had a lovely light texture and the berries had a nice zing to them. She grows a lot of her produce herself and sources the rest from friends gardens and local producer. Her icecream was simply screaming at me to eat it all (but I behaved...and only had a couple of spoonful)

Liz

You can find Liz at the Fermoy Farmer's Market on Sundays where she sells her lovely tarts, cupcakes and brownies . . . and lots more. Her lemontart was light and disappeared in nanoseconds. Her rosepetal and raspberry cupcake won the Mutant Space Eat my Cupcake competition and I have to say it was the most prettiest. So, make sure you pay her a visit at the market.

Chris

Chris came with a suitcase full of products but his gooseberry curd made him a winner with the judges. I personally loved the Plum & Star Anise Jam which had an unusual but lovely flavour. He also brought Portuguese style custard tarts (you can sample them at Cork Coffee Roaster, Bridge Street on Saturdays).

Alan

Poor Alan had just moved house the day before and got up at the sight of the first sunray to bake us some truly amazing bread. We enjoyed his rosemary foccacia, pesto bread and his multi seed bread. He even managed to make rhubarb and raisin bread.....Declan was impressed by the quality of the breads but I simply stuffed my face with it :-) Thank you, Alan, for letting us take some of the bread to the award ceremony

Chris from Sherkin

Chris came all the way from Sherkin with his homebrewed beer - may I say that I don't like beer very much but that in this case I sipped more than just a taster :-) Chris only uses natural ingredients and yeast and doesn't add sugar other than to help the head to form. He also brought his homemade wine and will you believe it??? Marrow and Pineapple wines taste actually very nice - unusual but nice. Sherkin will host a food festival in August, make sure you pay the island a visit. You might be in for a treat when meeting with Chris.

Mary Jo

Poor Mary Jo. She and Mary were the first one to arrive for the registration and had to come back several times as we were so much delayed. And both were so nice and still let other people go first. Thank you ladies, you were amazing.

Mary Jo brought us some really nice chutney and especially Ruth was very interested and the judges were very impressed by the way Mary Jo uses her produce and gives it some thought on what to do with it. I loved her elderflower cordial. Keep going Mary Jo.

Frances

I had some lovely chats with Frances in the preparations to the award and she is the shyest person I have come across in a long time. She made us fairy cakes. She is famous in her family for making novelty cakes and her fairy cakes were lovely decorated with Disney characters. She is in great demand for family gatherings were her cakes disappear quite quickly.

Salima

When Salima called me the first time, I think we spoke about 30 minutes on the phone. Her husband runs a Halal butchery in Barrack Street and she is very interested in cooking and is hoping to be able to sell her food for parties and large dinner parties. She made us hummus and couscous salad - please trust me it is not the same as you can buy in the shop. This food was simply yummy. Ed gave her his card and I hope she will be in touch with him to discuss how to proceed from here.

Mary

Mary is one of the most loveliest woman you will ever met. She was so patient with me and she and Mary Jo just made my day. Mary baked some lovely soda bread that was enriched with sesame. the original recipe was handed down to her from her mum but Mary made the recipe her own by adding sesame seeds to the dough. She bakes bread for friends and family and gives it always some thought how to make it more nutritinous for people of an advance age or with brittle bones. Mary, thank you so much for your patience. I loved your bread.

Annette

Have you ever been to a shop and seen these pretty bottles with oil and some things added to it. Well, trust me when I say, Annettes oils are not only pretty to look at but they also have a great flavoured packed in as well. She grows her own chillies and herbs and arranges them in such a lovely way that you do not want to open the bottle - but of course that didn't stop us at all. I loved them all. She also started to make sweet flavoured oils and I was very unlucky as we were running behind schedule and had to abandon the tasting of more oils. I hope that we will be able to see Annette's oil in shops soon.

Carol

Carol has put in a lot of work in her product which is homemade yogurt. I am not particular keen on flavoured yogurt but I love natural ones and hers was as yogurt should be. She also made an orange yogurt drink which was very refreshing. She also put a lot of work in her branding and her label is just the prettiest ever. I am sure that we haven't seen the last of Carol and her farm on the hill of the fairies.

Pat

Have you ever been to a French restaurant and ordered steak?? If so, you will know what Cafe de Paris butter is. This butter was first served in Geneva in 1941 with Sirloin Steak in a restaurant called Cafe de Paris (I bet you guessed that already). You can buy this butter in a delicatessen shop (although I have not seen it in Cork) and it also goes nicely with white fish. Anyhow, pat managed to come pretty close to the original (as far as I know all recipes out there are not the original) and it was simply yummy. The judges loved his homemade Worchestershire Sauce which had a great zing to it. I have to admit.....I took the jar of butter home with me and it disappeared quite quickly (and nope I didn't share it).

So, these were the shortlisted cook, bakers and growers and as I said, I was blown away by the talent and passion that each one presented. Chris with his gooseberry curd won being very closely followed by Pat. The oils were my personal favourite but I made a point by staying out of the judging. The judges ruled by presentation, flavour, sellable product and uniqueness. I can't wait for next years competition to see how this years participants have evolved and how many more are joining our quest to find the new top artisan of Ireland.

I like to thank everyone who has helped us on this journey. We didn't have any budget (zero, nil, 0) and we wouldn't have been able to pull this through without them. There are Ed O'Neil from Teagasc who sponsored the winning mentoring course, Failte Ireland who will be watching our talent more closely, Midsummer Festival for the free space at the Feasta Market, Declan Ryan and Ruth Healy for giving up their Sunday for the judging, Cork Coffee Roaster for the use of their coffee shop in Bridge Street for the award ceremony. Julian from Bubble Brothers for some truly lovely wine (I only got a sip as I was so busy) and Anthony from Ummera Smokehouse not only for the table and brollie but also for a big pack of smoked salmon and last but not least Matt and Chris for their help in getting the stall dismantled again and holding on to the table to make sure it doesn't get knocked down. All of you a great big thank you...will hug you all at a later stage.

If you have any questions to this competition or would like to be added to our mailing list, please email grow.bake.cook@gmail.com