Mandarin Festival Madness

Mandarin Festival 2015

Through the years, you all know how much the Partak family loves the Mandarin Festival. My first festival was with Mason in 2003 who was just one month old. Dave was training to deploy to Iraq so he was in Fort Lewis, WA. Through the years, because of the relationships we've made with the people at the festival, Mason and I were able to do live cooking demos, I got to run the cooking stage for a number of years while the woman who had done it had to be home with her family, and of course, we have all had so much fun participating in and sometimes winning the recipe contest. I can't be sure off the top of my head, but Dave, Mason and I have all won 3rd, 2nd, and 1st places in all categories, Mason, Dave, and I have all won the Snow's Citrus Court Award, and Dave has won the Best in Show Grand Prize as well. The last two years between running the cooking stage and life getting so busy with Mason becoming a teenager, I've been less plugged in to the time it takes to develop and create winning recipes. So much of my process to develop a recipe happens in my head. I process ingredients, techniques, and how it may look on the plate over and over before I ever try to make it. I've been doing this for the Mountain Mandarin Festival recipe contest since 2009, that's 10 years! Granted, I did not participate one of the two years I ran the cooking stage, but Dave and Mason did. With all of that said, I think we have a cookbook worth of mandarin recipes!

Mandarin Brown Sugar Ham w/Ham Sauce

Here we are in 2018, the 25th anniversary of the festival and the 10th year the Partak's have been participating in the recipe contest and I’m still in shock. This year the recipe that I developed in my head was a brown sugar mandarin ham with “ham sauce." Have you ever heard of "ham sauce"? Me neither. Sunday morning when I got up to get  things together for my ham, I decided at the last minute to make a mandarin upside down cake. I had thought about it, and I was enamored with how pretty I thought it would be. I had time and thought what the heck. I entered the ham and the cake and I won second place and $50 in the main dish category with my ham, but I won Best in Show and the Grand Prize with my cake! I seriously could not believe it. My take-away from winning the big prize is that I need to recognize that I do better when I don't over think things and when I don't try so hard. Seriously, I thought it was pretty and just whipped it up looking forward to how pretty it would be. I'm just over the moon, I have so much to be thankful for and I can't wait to be with all of our friends for Thanksgiving. 

Grand Prize Mandarin Upside Down Cake