Cafe chef wins silver award for her pie
A small Timaru cafe is frantically preparing pies after scooping a national award for its organic chicken and leek offering.
Replenish cafe manager Charlotte Manson and chef Fiona Townsend were ‘‘overwhelmed’’ when they discovered they had won the silver award in the Cafe Boutique category of the 20th Bakels NZ Supreme Pie Awards.
‘‘(We’re) Frantically trying to make more pies in anticipation of people coming to sample them,’’ Fiona Townsend said.
Townsend’s pie, a country-style cream of chicken, leek, carrot, celery, ham and cheese combo, was created using mostly locally sourced ingredients.
Manson said the chicken in the pie was free-range, and the cafe used free range meats and spray- free vegetables wherever possible.
‘‘It’s a wholesome pie with nothing processed, which is a good point of difference for us,’’ Manson said.
She said Townsend used ‘‘local and seasonal foods’’ often sourced from Timaru’s Saturday farmers market in her food.
Townsend had not entered the pie competition last year, but had come seventh in the same category in 2014 for a pork pie topped with kumara, she said.
There were 103 pies entered in the category this year.
Her entry was beaten by chef Brad Dalton of Ginger Dynamite in Motueka, who won the gold award for his smoked warehou and tarakihi fish pie.
Brent Kersel, managing director of NZ Bakels, said bakers were more resourceful today and when you combined this with the quality of produce available in New Zea- land, high-quality pies were the result.
Mark Southon, top British chef and celebrity judge for the awards, said he was ‘‘staggered how passionate Kiwis are about their pies’’.
The standard of entry this year had been ‘‘outstanding’’, he said.
More than 5200 pies from across New Zealand were entered in the competition which attract 2637 entrants across 12 categories.