Congratulations to Aupaki Kāhui Ako competitors from Mt Pleasant & Heathcote Valley! These amazing girl's menus & concepts were two of only 6 selected out of 220 entries!!!! ... Well done to Nia & Jean from Heathcote Valley on taking out first place! And to our very own Sascha and Lila on making it to second place!

On Friday the 22 of June we entered a cooking competition called Root to Tip. We had to use as much of a vegetable as possible. Our menu also had to be vegetable-based so, for our main we did Smokey Kumara and Pumpkin with a salad and for dessert we made a Rhubarb Crumble with whipped cream. I’ll tell you now, it looked , as well as tasted AWESOMELY, AMAZING!!! 

We were so happy when we took our first dish up to the judges because they were all ooo-ing and aah-ing and woos-ing!!!! It was such a great feeling to know that they were enjoying our dish that we had made and had brought up to them. We only had 2 hrs to have served up both of our courses. There were four judges, two of them were the team that had came first last year. The other two judges were chefs who have restaurants in Christchurch. The first one was Alex Davis, who had a restaurant in the city, and the other was Alesha Billbrough-Collins who has a restaurant called BearLion in New Brighton. Over all, we had a great time and really enjoyed ourselves. We are so grateful to have been chosen in the top six out of 220 entries!!!!!!

Our second placing was terrific. The other team’s dish that won used a vegetable called Choko!!

Now we are waiting till next year and then we are going to win this once and for all!!!!!!! We were so so so very glad to be there to compete in the competition!!!!!

By Sascha & Lila

https://www.roottotip.org.nz