2009 TasteFest Review and Winners
 

The party was a great success this year! The best yet, I would say. The weather was perfect and so was the company. I took pics of most of the tomatoes, and others took pics of the people. I have to work today so I don't have time to get mine ready to post yet, but I have the next couple days off so they will go up soon. I will post others' pics as I get them.
There were 76 varieties to vote on. A few varieties showed up late so the total count was more like 90.
The winners this year were:
Best Tasting ~ Indian Stripe, grown by Jerry P.
Sweetest ~ Snow White, grown by Mark Korney
Tangiest~ ???(a green mystery from a pkt. from Tomatofest) grown by Richard Price.
Largest ~ Slankard's 2lbs. 1.9oz grown by Jerry P.
Smallest ~ Currant grown by me(I finally won something!:lol:)
Prettiest ~ Green Zebra grown by Brenda F.
Ugliest ~ Purple Calabash grown by Richard Price
Norm Brown Award for Craziest Tomato Lover(who ever travels the farthest to come) ~ Jim(Jimche) and Galina from NJ

Thanks to all who came and made the party a great success! You know I realize now we forgot a group picture, oh well next year!
Remy

Actually, it was Indian Stripe, not Vintage Wine, that won Best Tasting Tomato!

Jerry still has my camera, if he brings it back today, I'll ask him to give me his CF card and I'll do the editing & resizing and try to post the individual pics.

Did you make a list of which varieties? I don't remember many duplicates but do remember there were 102 plates!

Jerry just called, he will make a CD of the pics & get them to me in the next couple hours hopefully.

I'm barely upright....but still have a smile on my face just thinking about how fun it was yesterday (although I don't include the parking lot at the border in the fun part - grrrrrrrrr). For those that left before I got there....sorry to have missed you, but my Dad was happy to see that some of the baklava came back for him. LOL Sorry I missed all the main festivities, but I can vouch for the fact that all the food that was still spread out was delish! (Another reason to be upset about the backup/parking lot at the border - no meat on a stick left to sample....sighhhh....grrrrrrrrr)

Since I made a few "shopping" stops on the way home...even at that hour - God, I love 24 hour grocery stores....and what's a trip across the border without a stop at Tar-get?!? - I ended up pulling over for a wee nap on the way home. Think I got back closer to 3 am....at least the border crossing took less than 15 minutes at that hour. So I may go back to bed for more zzzzz's.

I'll work on making a full list of those we "bagged" up to save seeds later today. I'm not sure, but I think we had baggies of all varieties, didn't we? This year there were still bits of cut up ones of everything left, so I think I may have a full representation of all varieties, unlike last year. I may have to go thru the bags and taste more of them....I was tasting as I was bagging, but with 3-4 of us bagging, I obviously didn't try them all. A

Lots of great people - returnees and newbies too. Great to see that Jim and Galina made it - I wasn't sure if they'd get my pm with the directions in time, since it was posted in the wee hours on Saturday morning. Thanks for the seeds, Richard! Now I'm going to file last year's seeds into my main collection and will segregate this year's until next year's tomatofest....lol.

Once again, my thanks goes to Remy and her family for their fabulous hospitality and all those that made this year's event what it was. Lots of great memories! I'll be back next year with bells on!

PS - I just wasn't the same not having to dodge Hilde and her camera.....heeheehee. Oh right....I missed you Hilde....but not your camera! LOL

I'm resizing pics from the show now. I see that we didn't get pics of the table in the back, maybe Remy did. Not pictured there were:

Carbon
Cherokee Green Grape
Quartz Multiflora
Black Cherry
Joe's Plum
Granny Cantrell's German
Gregori's Altai (pink, not red; the red version was from the late Chuck Wyatt in MD)
Oleyar's German, which got moved to the middle table
KBHeart Red (PL)
KBHeart Pink 13N & 13S.
Earl of Edgecombe (I brought it but don't know where it went!)
Red Rose (a commercial Rutgers x Brandywine OP, I grew 1 plant that was PL)
Nipples (I think someone moved it to the Smallest category table)

Mark,
I don't know why I wrote Vintage Wine! Must be the wine I was drinking last night:D . Anyway I fixed it.
I did get pics of the back table, not sure if I got them all, but at least most of them.
I also had a big brain fart yesterday! I forgot to thnk you for the excellent job on the certificates and awards as usual!! You know I appreciate it very much, the scale too!

Zana,
I'm glad you made it across the border yesterday, and that you made it home safe too!
Remy

Hi guys, it sounds like you had a great tomato taste fest! I wish I could have been there with all of you and tasting all those fantastic tomatoes! I see I even missed out on that baklava! Darn! Now, what is taking you so long with posting the pictures? ;):lol:

Hilde

[quote=Hilde;143456]Hi guys, it sounds like you had a great tomato taste fest! I wish I could have been there with all of you and tasting all those fantastic tomatoes! I see I even missed out on that baklava! Darn! [B]Now, what is taking you so long with posting the pictures? [/B];):lol:

Hilde[/quote]

I HAVE 118 PICS, reduced from 194MB to 8.8MB. Most were around 4MB each, got most down to 60-70kb each.

How did you post them last time? Is there a bulk uploader? I even named each file properly instead of just leaving the raw camera names...

Here are the tomatoes, there are still some pics we are missing... STILL LOOKING FOR RED ROSE (PL) PIC... Pictured individually (so far) are 87 unique varieties...plus 1 plate had 2 varieties (so 88.) There ARE MORE but not sure what is on the corner table for the smallest category--I didn't include the tiniest ones (but did include the huckleberries!)

If using WinXP or newer, and have tooltips turned on, you can hover your mouse over any pic to see the filename, some of which are more than just a filename, like captions! (see the people post following this post for more captions.)

I also added Schwartz Sarah... If anybody has individual plated pics NOT posted below, please let me know so I can shrink/name/resize & add to the list.

Without some of the missing pics, I can't make a complete varieties list yet!

I believe we had 2 entries of Green Zebra, Giant Belgium (both appear to be "wrong" Tomato Grower's Supply "free" seeds I believe), Snow White, Tobolsk & Virginia Sweets. Any others please let me know. I also entered two versions of Gregori's Altai, the correct pink one, PLUS a red version I got from the late Chuck Wyatt in, I believe, 2000-2001.

Alright, who put my Olive Hill in the Ugliest contest???

Here's everything else: the food, kids having fun, people, preparing the plates, the prizes and our mascot for the day, Korney's Sapphire Brandy Whine!!!

Lots of varieties represented it looks like. And a big crowd!
Saffy looks like she's having a good ole time :)

[quote=Barbee;143471]Lots of varieties represented it looks like. And a big crowd!
Saffy looks like she's having a good ole time :)[/quote]

I think with the kids we had maybe 30-35 people.

Yes, Saffy was spoiled rotten! If she wasn't chasing Korney's Jelly Beans up & down the sidewalk, the kids were giving her Milkbones & ice! She [I]loves[/I] tomatoes & corn on the cob, though she didn't figure out how to hold it yet! :lol:

Here's Miss Penny. Corndog.
[IMG]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3137/2933561217_449ed838b0.jpg[/IMG]

Hahahahaha!!!!!!!

Here's the link to the photos I took. I'm still waiting on Sheryl for the people and awards pics.
[url]http://s65.photobucket.com/albums/h234/Remyo_2006/Buffalo%20Niagara%20Tomato%20Tastefest%202009/?start=0[/url]

Mark,
"Alright, who put my Olive Hill in the Ugliest contest???":twisted: I admit I did it, but it was at the suggestion of one of the people I didn't know. The growth stripes on top of it were ugly.
There were definitely at least 30 adults there so with kids at least 40.

Hilde,
Great to see you post from Norway! Sheryl told me to tell you she missed seeing you and the girls.

Barbee,
That's a cute pic! Mark's dog is a cutie too.
Remy