David takes on Goliath

We are over the moon today and immensely proud.  A few days ago we entered our Kashmir Vegetarian Gluten-free pie into the Official Great Aussie Pie Competition and with the results now in, we did better than expected.  After all, we were the David, going up against the Goliaths of the Australian pie world.  The competition within the industry was huge with the lists of medal winners over four days reading like a who's who of bakeries around the states and territories.  And there was my pie, packed carefully and tightly in a polystyrene box hoping that, with all the "this way up" and "precious pies inside" instructions on the outside, it would make it safely to Melbourne.  Apparently it did.

We looked for the results on Day 2 which, was about when we figured that our pie would have been judged.  Gold!  It had won a Gold medal and we were thrilled.  After all, I have only been making gluten-free pies since the start of winter so consider myself a rookie.  However, I have a philosophy where food is concerned.  I was a vegetarian for years and was always disappointed when I ate out.  If there was not a specifically dedicated vegetarian meal on the menu then you usually ended up with chips or wedges.  If there was, it was often pasta with a whole bunch of unrelated vegetables thrown together.  It felt as if I was being given a second class meal with all the leftover vegetables from other dishes.  It was as if the cook was saying that a vegetarian meal comprised nondescript food with the meat removed.  They were not dishes in their own right, with flavour and style.  So when I became vegetarian I decided that I was going to create dishes for my carnivorous friends that they could enjoy without noticing that there was no meat involved.

This is the approach I have taken with our gluten-free pies.  It is not a second-class pie, it has as much care and consideration in its making as any other pie.  I enjoy the challenge of replacing something conventional with something out of the ordinary and coming up with something tasty.  I guess I got it right with the Kashmir Vegetarian Gluten-free pie because we not only won a gold medal but...the overall gluten-free prize.  That means that the Blue Bird has been judged the best gluten-free pie...in Australia this year!  Wow, that was much better than we had expected.

We wished at the time that we could have entered our famous sausage roll and another gourmet pie as well but felt that the timing was not right with family visiting from NZ, Spirit of the Land preparations coming up and two local shows in which to participate.  This was also a long shot competition for us but we figured that you've got to give these things a go or you will never get anywhere.  Besides which, even just the effort of entering says to our customers that we believe enough in our product to let it stand up with others in our industry.  And we were right to have faith in our pies.  So now that we are feeling inspired, we will free up the time and resources to enter more categories next year.  It is always good to have the validation of your peers and this has definitely been a huge boost to our confidence.

Many years ago Peter Veneris made pies every day he worked at The Blue Bird.  Meat and apple were his pies, he told us.  We are honoured to keep up the Veneris tradition of pie-making.  In Peter's day, meat and apple were a staple variety.  In the 21st Century, new flavours and styles have emerged but the tradition of hand kneading dough and rolling out real homemade shortcrust pastry remains part of life at The Blue Bird.