Soil Association Organic Food Awards 2013

A brief glimpse of the Soil Association Organic Food Awards on day two..

Early in the morning setting up

Chef how did you do it all?

Boy or a Girl !

It's a huge honour to be asked to judge food at any awards function and even a greater honour to be asked to judge the top organic food in the country, here are a few pictures that demonstrate the detail in excellence.. 

A beautifully crimped pasty

A Hand Raised Pork Pie

Refreshments were supplied all day in order that we could clean our palates inbetween sampling..

The early morning sun added just enough heat to sample these oils at the best temperature

Pasta's & Pulses

 

The samples went on and on..

 

and on and on and on..

Trevor deep in thought and hard at work finding the soup section challenging...

Take another slurp Trevor!



And another Trevor and another.....

Geetie did you really say that would make great baby food? 

 

Michelle with the best re-action of the day
"by jove that was good"

Guy Watson and his team debating a Gold winner

Jo Wood deciding to have a lie down while the debate continues

Now the chicken, we had long legs, short legs, plump legs and they all had to be eaten, phew this is a hard job..

Not to mention we also had to eat some small birds, big birds, plump birds.....I have to mention here without giving the game away, one of the best tasting chickens in the blind tasting turned out to be a British traditional breed...

A lot of time and butchery effort went into this entry, well done who ever you are... 

Now we have to eat all the lamb entries..

I just need to mention something so I'll slip it in here. As with all food competitions they were some poor entries, so to you guy's I would like to say this; please think about presenting your entry in the very best way you possibly can, ask yourself have you done enough, can I do it better? Frustratingly some of you were only a whisker away from a gold award. If it helps you to achieve your goals, then consider hiring yourself a professional to push your entry to the next level. Sorry, just trying to be helpful "Rant" over!   

They were racks of lamb, cushions of lamb, chump of lamb and much more...

 

Chef said he was setting his timer, he promises he wasn't tweeting!

We also had to eat bacon, sausage and much more on the day, in fact a sausage Gold winner chosen on the day also happened to be the best in the history of the competition, also a surprise Hot Dog entry was also of very high quality. A few other entries that took me by surprise were an excellent Ketchup and a Mulled Wine satchet that had been perfectly blended, I wasn't expecting to be excited by these entries as they are not normally on my radar as was a Chowder Soup which was not rated in the competition by the other judges, but I can tell you I ate the lot so nice I thought it was, so if that was your chowder, Well Done!

There is no doubt that Organic food is some of the best there is available as judging on this day proved, so if you get a chance, buy some organic products and try them for yourself, there's no better reward for a producer than a sale. Believe you me the producer would rather have you the customer than a Gold award, however the Gold award does demonstrate that you can trust the source and you can be confident in knowing that the producer has made every effort to provide you with the very best possible.

Did I tell you that the Duke of Cambridge the venue for the competition also made us lunch, can you believe it, having to eat a lunch on top of all that....

Go on, choose Organic you know it makes sense.....