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Message to our friends |
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Jo & I spent a wonderful 4 days at the Gaylord Opryland
Resort. I have never seen such a huge resort complex. They employ over
2000 employees and have over 2000 rooms. The resort is mostly under dooms
and the fauna and rock formations and waterfall treatments are
unbelievable. It was truly amassing.
We have never been to a Cookoff Contest so everything
was new to us. We never imagined that to a lot of people this is their
career, I.e. entering cookoff contests for the money and prizes. Most of
the other finalists were "Pros" but nonetheless took Jo under their wings
and gave her some tips that were appreciated. Southern Living treated
their Finalists like royalty. Everything was done first class and they
spared no expense. Not only was the trip and hotel accommodations provided
but everything else was also. The meals were exclusive, private and most
had some form of entertainment. They even gave the finalists spending
money which came in handy for me because there was a huge, I mean huge
outlet mall within walking distance to the resort that had a 23 movie
Movie Plex and a glow in the dark Putt Putt course in addition to the
stores, some of which were as big as a small mall themselves.
Enough on the small stuff. As soon as Jo arrived she
had to cook her Flan so that it could cool for Friday's judging. While the
rest of us were feasting and dancing, Jo was cooking her Flan under the
ever watchful eyes of Southern Living's security.
Jo's Category, Signature Desserts, was judged first at
8:30 Friday am. By the end of the day all the judging was complete and
final but no one other than the judges knew the winners.
Saturday was the TV staged Contest with Al Roker
hosting. The staging facility at the resort was sold out and I was as
nervous as I've ever been. Each categories finalists (3 in each category)
were brought on stage and actually had to prepare and explain their recipe
to Al and the audience. After all the had finished Al then announced the
category winner. Jo's category, which was judged first, was chosen to be
on stage LAST. She and I had to wait close to 2 1/2 hours for her time to
come. Jo was unbelievable on stage. She reminded me of Lucille Ball,
funny, crazy but adoring to all.
When Al Roker announced her name I was in shock. She
actually WON her category. She became one of the 5 finalist to compete for
the $100,000 Grand prize. I knew at this point Jo would be selected to win
the Grand prize but it went to the local Tennessee finalist. I'm thinking
about suing but probably won't. I'll have to get over it. It's still
amassing to me the Jo's recipe was selected out of the 35,000 sent in and
she won her category. I'm so proud of her especially after I found out the
real odds of her accomplishing this on her first contest.
We are very proud and happy at Jo's success.
David Hastings
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