Another First

Inspired by our recent pie win I took the time during a quiet spell on Saturday to do some baking.  It was a bit slow in the cafe during the AFL Grand Final so I got out the mixing bowls and baked a chocolate cake to enter into the Lockhart Show the following day.  I am always nervous entering local show cookery competitions because I know that I am taking on longstanding country cooks, champion sponge and scone makers.  The standard of their entries is often high.  These cooks have after all been making and entering cakes for many years.  Their recipes have been handed down from generations of cooks and they know their kitchens and oven temperatures like the back of their hands.

Roger's grandmother could put her hand in her gas oven and tell by feel that it was the right, even temperature to cook the perfect sponge.  She made her own butter straight from the house cow and fed it in curls to her grandson.  Our friend Joy's mother Connie was inspirational.  She was taught to cook by her mother and passed her knowledge on to her own daughter.  Connie made champion sponges and fruit cakes and her cooking supported charities like the CWA and Red Cross at The Rock throughout her life.  Today Joy tirelessly makes trays of slices for the same charities.  Jelly slice, peanut caramel, hedgehog slice, she has made so many over the years that she is hard to beat.

So when I entered my high school recipe chocolate cake into the local Lockhart Show, I was summoning up all my experience and skill to compete.  After all, this cake was the first recipe that I learned in cookery class at school and my mother and I have made it many times sine then so I've had a bit of practice at it.  Mum adapted the recipe successfully to a coffee cake so that she could enjoy it too (she can't eat chocolate).  She used to bake every Saturday afternoon to fill the tins for Sunday lunch and weekday afternoon teas.  She is a good baker and passed her skill on to me.

We were too busy in the cafe on the Sunday to be able to join in the fun out at the Lockhart Showgrounds so I had to wait till the end of the day to hear whether my egg-free, low-fat chocolate cake had made the grade.  It won 1st Prize in the chocolate cake section and I have proudly displayed my certificate in our front window alongside the others.  The local win in the Lockhart Show is as important to us as our tourism and pie awards because a win at the local show offers us the support of our community. 

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.

On a Brighter Note

I will not dwell on the grim days of last week beyond offering our condolences to the Hunt family.  We do not know many of them well but nevertheless their heartbreak must be immense and we feel for their pain.  Also to the children of St Joseph's School who have suffered such a shock in their young lives.  You wish that you could shelter children from pain but life is full of distresses and it is not always possible to protect childhood innocence.  If there is anything that we can do from here, then we offer our ongoing help and support.

Prior to last week, we were working hard to perfect one of our gluten-free pies.  Why?  Because we decided to enter the Official Great Aussie Pie Competition which is being held in Melbourne as I write.  While we have only just begun our careers in pie-making, we decided that it was worth throwing our hats into the ring and entering.  We decided to start relatively small with just one offering this year as we understand that the competition is high.  Bakers and cafes from all over the country compete.

So our choice for entry was a specialty pie because that is what we consider we do best.  We have entered a vegetarian gluten-free pie.  Our Kashmir Pie has a handmade gluten-free shortcrust pastry base, filled with a mash of pumpkin, sweet potato, carrot, apricots, almonds and currants infused with sweet Indian spices.  The pie is topped with a mashed potato because we felt it necessary to vary our textures, given the challenge to make gluten-free pastry as light as standard pastry.  Our aim is to infuse flavour into an uninspiring world of gluten-free cooking.  So fingers crossed and wish us luck.  We know that we are up against some titans in the baking world however, in for a penny...

Night of Stars

Exhausted is how I would describe the pair of us today.  We had a tremendous evening at the gondola masquerade awards last night in Griffith.  Sleep and recovery however, was sadly lacking as we had to drive back early to Lockhart to open up the cafe and serve our customers.  Phew!  But it was worth the trip and all the effort put in entering the Inland Tourism Awards.  This may just be the start of something for us.  It certainly feels like we have taken a new direction and meeting all the people last night was like being welcomed into a group of like-minded friends.  We were nervous at the start of the evening but by the end, felt like we were celebrating along with others working hard in the tourism industry.

So how did we go?  As you know we were among the hopeful finalists in the Heritage and Cultural Tourism category.  We know that there were many others who never made it that far and felt proud to be considered for the award alongside the likes of Yanga National Park and Nundle Woollen Mill (a previous winner).  The competition was strong and the winner of the overall category was Yanga National Park but we won a special award of our own, one quite unique to the evening.  The Blue Bird Cafe proudly won the Encouragement Award, presented to us as a first time entrant just starting out on the journey.  We were advised that this award is not given out often but it recognises future potential and the integrity of a good tourism product.  We feel honoured therefore that we have the industry's faith in us and that we have been able to stand beside some outstanding businesses and multiple award winners.  It is an inspiration for us to go further next year.  Watch this space.

Wish Us Luck

Letting you all know that the cafe will be closed this Saturday evening and some of Sunday morning so that Roger and I can attend the Inland Tourism Awards in Griffith.  We have our glad rags dusted off and ready to go.  Courtesy of a lucky find at the opshop, I have a pretty new frock to wear and Roger has been instructed to scrub up and put on his Spirit of the Land fancy waistcoat for the occasion.  We will take some photos of the evening's excitement so that everyone can see us looking swish and having a ball.  It will be amazing if we win but even if we don't we are looking forward to a night away, a party and the chance to meet with other businesses working as hard as we are in the tourism industry.

Rest assured that we will still be cooking pizzas on Friday night and will make double the dough so you won't miss out as we will only be pizza making one night this week rather than the usual two.

So wish us luck and we will see you Sunday with all the news of the big night.

The Best Pizza in the World

I have eaten many a pizza over the years and a fair few more just lately but I can now say that I have tasted the world's best pizza.  On a recent trip to Melbourne Roger and I made it our mission to try the award winning Margherita pizza at 400 Gradi in Lygon Street.

Comparing it to a Blue Bird pizza is like comparing apples with oranges and we won't even go there but we did feel that our pizza stacked up well in the general pizza arena.  What we did really enjoy about 400 Gradi was the experience of sitting at the bar to watch the experts at work and soaking up in some small way, their skills.  The restaurant had a lively atmosphere and the staff were very professional but warm in their service.  We definitely recommend the food and the experience.

Milestones and Rewards

Any one in business will be familiar with the highs and lows that go with the responsibility of being your own boss.  At times you doubt having made the right choice taking the plunge from safe employment into the deep blue something.  Sometimes you fear that you might not have the stamina to stick at it when the growing bills are spread across the floor.  And then the next day you get up and don your rose-coloured glasses to look upon the hardship as the pain that will make the eventual pleasure seem all the more worthwhile.  Somewhere deep inside you find the strength to hold on to your dream.

And then every once in a while you get a boost, a reassurance that your cock-eyed optimistic belief in yourself and your vision for the future, has validity.  This week we have had an all important milestone boost.  I am proud to say that, after entering the 2014 Inland Tourism Awards, The Blue Bird Cafe has been selected as a finalist in the Heritage and Culture category.  There is plenty of competition out there so we feel very proud to be in the running.

I entered the cafe in order to boost our morale and found, as I filled in the extensive application, that it made me take stock of where we are now, two years after deciding to take on this outrageous adventure, as well as how far we have come.  I revisited our original business case and updated it to reflect all that we have learned about the practicalities of the hospitality trade and running a business.  I reassessed our business risks and our mission statement.  Our mission has become more eloquent over time but I am as charmed by it today as I was in the beginning.  And most importantly, the process of writing the award submission allowed us both to take a moment to dream.  We put all of our crazy blue sky ideas for the future down onto one piece of paper and looked at the shape our business could one day take.

It is all too easy to get bogged down in the day to day.  The routine of getting up and making pies each morning, the demands of the lunch and dinner time rushes.  Over time Roger and I seem to have managed to split ourselves into about three people each with six sets of hands.  It astounds me at how quickly the necessity of adapt and survive has made us efficient.  We approached the cafe two years ago with oodles of combined life experience and practical skills that we knew we could adapt to the specifics we would need.  Such is the enthusiasm of the optimist and it is surprising how quickly you do just that...adapt.

So when we heard that we were to get a site visit from a regional judge, we were chuffed (Roger is going to roll his eyes at me for using that word).  As I pressed the 'send' button on the original application, I remarked to him:  "Ah well, I have no idea if we have what they are looking for but it's worth giving it a go".  The site inspection was the morale boost we needed to take the next step forward.  I know that I spent the day of the inspection floating on a high, knowing that we had "done ourselves proud" in presenting The Blue Bird at its best.  Well, our best for the moment that is because The Blue Bird, Roger and I are still works in progress.  We work hard every day and it is fantastic to have made it this far in the award process and to be receiving some external recognition for what we have done as well as what we are still to do.  Both sets of parents, family and close friends have supported us with encouragement, sometimes physical assistance and always tenacious believe in us but at the end of the day it is Roger and I who struggle together through the tough bits.  We laugh when crying would get us nowhere and balance each other's downs with an up.

We now have to wait until the awards night on 26th July to see what happens so cross your fingers for us and watch this space.