The Tasmanian Craft Fair is held every year in the first week of November at Deloraine and there are quite a number of venues to have a look at.
This year I was situated at the showgrounds in the Quamby pavillion and loved my spot. I spent a great deal of time and effort on my stall preparation as it was alot bigger than last years site. I was doing the show by myself as Craig had alot of work on so I knew that I was going to be pretty buggered each day but that didnt matter I could deal with that, as I have been doing this for a while now and knew what to expect. Expect the unexpected as they say......... Saturday night is the awards night and is a great event where nibbles are provided and awards for various categories are handed out. For various reasons I didnt go, I was pretty knackered and just wanted to have some peace back at the caravan park where I was staying in my tent. The next morning after Craig arrived to visit the night before we were setting up for the day and the organisers came up to me and asked me why I did not attend the awards night as I had won the BEST PRESENTED STALL AWARD FOR THE TASMANIAN CRAFT FAIR 2013. I was blown away and could not believe it. I was lost for words for a change....... I received a beautiful trophy, a cheque and a certificate. It was a pretty big deal and I had no idea that I had won. I felt pretty good. I have had a pretty tough 18 months so getting the award was a great booster to my realization that what I was doing was paying off and to stick at it, even though I just felt like giving up sometimes.
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As if I have had enough of entering my Dukkah into as many food competitions as I could in 2012, I decided to go for Melbourne this year to start off with.
I am pleased to say that I just won a Silver Medal for my Lemon Pepper Dukkah in the Melbourne Fine Food Awards and was ranked the highest out of all entries around Australia. I am so happy with that result and now adds to the rest of my awards for the year including: Almond: Silver Medal - 2012 Sydney Fine Food Awards 1st Place Winner at the Campbelltown Show Cashew: Bronze Medal - 2012 Hobart Fine Food Awards 2nd Place Winnder at the Huon Show Lemon Pepper: Bronze Medal - 2012 Hobart Fine Food Awards Silver Medal - 2013 Melbourne Fine Food Awards 3rd Place Winner at the Brighton Show Garlic : Silver Medal - 2012 Hobart Fine Food Awards Mild Chilli: Silver Medal - 2012 Hobart Fine Food Awards Hot Chilli: Bronze Medal - 2012 Hobart Fine Food Awards Sweet: Silver Medal - 2012 Hobart Fine Food Awards Chip Spice: Silver Medal - 2012 Sydney Fine Food Awards Now I am going for Gold this year with a couple of new flavours being trialled and worked on. Garlic Harvest I cannot believe the amount of Organic Tasmanian Purple Garlic that I have harvested this year. All my hard work in maintaining the crop, weeding it and saving seed from previous years has paid off. Now all I am doing is peeling and drying the cloves so that I can process them into a powder for my award winning Garlic Dukkah that everyone LOVES!!!! What an exciting day it has been. Today I delivered my first order of Dukkah to a new stockist in Tasmania. The name of it is The Aproneers, they are a gourmet food store located at 145 East Derwent Hwy, LINDISFARNE. Check them out at: www.aproneers.com.au. It is going to be an exciting store filled with Tasmanian produce from all over the place. Good luck guys with the new venture.
The other place that I have been putting some organic vegetables into is the Shell service station in Geeveston, owned by Samara and James Ford. They have started stocking fruit and veg and are selling out every week, because it is good veg and very cheap. They also support local growers in the area like me. Check them out sometime if you are going to get your petrol. Well it is over for another year. AGEST. This year I attended AGFEST as a stall holder for the first time. Quite a number of other years I have attended as a customer and would never have dreamt that I would one day be part of the show.
Alison helped me and without her help and listening to my constant chatter I would not have been able to do it. The first day we got up at 4am and left by 5am. This in itself was a shock to the system. My body just wanted to stay in bed as it was warm inside and rather chilly outside. I faced a 5-6 hour journey as I had the trailer on the back of the car full of stock. Hopefully this would become lighter in a few days. We stopped in Campbelltown for breakfast and it was really yummy and well worth it. This filled our tummies for the next part of our journey. We finally got to the site at 12 noon along with a million other people and cars and animals etc. It had been raining throughout the day and so of course when you are faced with a paddock that has been rained on it had now become a mud patch. We found where the site was and started unloading in the rain and mud. I could not wait to set up and get out of there. We finally finished setting up and I was happy with how quick we unloaded considering the mess that we had to put up with. Back to the apartment in Carrick. We stayed at the Stables which is a B&B and very nice. www.hawthornvilla.com.au We grabbed some dinner and just crashed for the rest of the night. Day one of the show was a little quiet but apparently it was always like this. Overall though it was a good show and sales were pretty good considering. Day two was alot better than day one and sales were increasing so it was a good sign that everyone was happy with the product. Day three was even better and overall I was happy with the whole event considering that this was the first time that I had been there. I will definitely be back next year so look out for the stall. I will probably be in the food tent next year. Thank you to everyone for your support and I look forward to hearing how you liked the Well this was certainly the highlight of Taos hospital stay I think. These hawks players came especially to see a little boy that was on the Koala ward in room 305. I wonder who that was....... You should have seen the look on Taos face, priceless I would say. The players also signed the back of their shirts that Shane and Liz kindly bought them, the kids went to bed with them on that night. There were also some Kangaroo's footy players hanging around earlier in the morning and these were Tao's first lot of famous visitors. Tao and I were watching the appeal on TV and we saw them entering the lifts in the background and about 10mins later they were walking in Taos room to say hi and sign a footy that they had given him. During the morning Channel 9 were doing lots of different interviews with the kids in the hospital wards. Easter bunny and the Channel 9 presenter made a special visit as well and he got on Channel 9 at 6pm that night. It was a pretty amazaing day, it was nice to see a huge smile on Taos face and ours. This is a photo of the boys with Tao's cardiac doctor Charmaine. She is very nice and she said that she will miss Taos cheeky nature when he goes home but will remember him. All the staff on the ward including ICU were fantastic and we could not have gone through the whole process without their support so thank you very much. Amoungst some of the other famous people for the day was the MKR girls that won the last show. The boys were funny, they could not understand why all the adults were really excited about seeing them but the girls made the boys laugh anyway and I think that they had fun as well. "Mums new boyfriend"...... The boys and I were laughing at this photo. I could not resist having a photo with some of the Winners and Losers cast members, there were also Packed to the Rafters cast members hanging around as well. This is nearly the final piece in Taos heart operation puzzle. Taos is undoing a patch that has the stitches under it that use to hold his drains in place that were put into his chest for the operation. Tao has certainly made himself at home by decorating his room with many presents and now I just have to work out how I am going to carry it all home on the plane or truck whatever it turns out to be. Hope you are not queezy....... This is just before the stitches came out showing the open heart scar as well that was cut open twice in the same place. I cannot believe how many kids per week have to have open heart surgery in this hospital, most outcomes are good but there are always a few that are not which is really sad. Luckily for us the outcome was good. Have you heard of a QR code.
A QR Code (it stands for "Quick Response") is a mobile phone readable barcode that's been big in Japan forever, broke into Europe a while back, and is now getting traction in USA. In its simplest sense think "print based hypertext link" - simply encode a URL into the QR Code and then point a mobile phone (or other camera-enabled mobile) at it. If the device has had QR Code decoding software installed on it, it will fire up its browser and go straight to that URL. I have now started putting it on all my brochures and other communication so we will see how it goes. Hi there all.
I am just letting you know that Tao, after a couple of scary moments is doing very well. Today he is up and walking about and talking and being cheeky. I am still not sure about when we are going to be home but when that does happen he will still have to relax and let his chest heal. Open heart surgery is a huge operation, but I am looking forward to coming home to the family of animals and amazing supportive and loving friends whom I could not do this all without. This post is to let suppliers, customers and friends know that I am having to go to Melbourne on the 19th of March for at least three weeks due to my olderst son Tao having to have open heart surgery. I have someone looking after the business while I am away but if you need anything urgent please ring me or leave a message as I will be back every saturday in between time for the Salamanca Markets. I apologise now for any interuptions this may cause.
Thank you Tanya Brine Bodhi Farm ORgan Come and join me for my biggest show so far this year. The event is called the Taste of the Huon. This is the first year I have participated and very excited. There are quite a few thousand people that attend and all the food is from the Huon Region and is a great day for the family to go out and enjoy good food from around the area.
I will be having a stall and a helper also. Eve is a friend of mine but I have also employed her every week now to help me make stock. I am getting busier and busier and have now found that I cannot do it all on my own anymore. I am pretty happy that is product is now getting well known around Tasmania especially but also around Australia very slowly. I have also been attending business breakfasts at the local Enterprise Centre in Huonville once a month and I am the guest speaker next mnonth. I have to give a presentation about the buisiness, how it started and what it is alll about. I am very nervous as I get shy talking to people at the front of the room, but it will be good experience. So.... if you are in Hobart and would like to have a great long weekend, come along to the Taste and say hello. Cher |
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