After six years, Yoli has finally gotten her due. Her caramel apple pie won the “All-American Pie Contest” with at the Ferguson Farmers Market on Saturday.
But I have to admit I did a double-take as I researched that paragraph. Has it been six years? Really?
Yep. Yoli has entered at least one dessert/pie contest a year in Ferguson since 2007. Until Saturday she had never won first place in a pie contest. Though we haven’t written about every one of her contest endeavors on the blog, we did write about a few of them:
| Apple cranberry pie | 2007 | pie contest | 2nd |
| Strawberry palmiers | 2008 | berry contest | 1st |
| Apple cranberry pie | 2009 | pie contest | HM |
| Strawberry pizza | 2010 | strawberry contest | 2nd |
| Apple crisp | 2012 | apple contest | 2nd |
Yoli’s pie was really good. She told me the night before that she was doubling down on boldness. The crust had apple cutouts which she painted bright red and green. She also put extra caramel filling to make sure it would be sweet. (In years past she has entered apple pies that were tart and sweet, which is the way I like apple pies. But the judges have never gone for tart)
Her prize was $50 in farmers market bucks, and hopefully we’ll see her photo in the Ferguson Times newspaper.
It was a busy day, but lots of fun. This year the girls have been taking dance classes on Saturdays. Ludi and Josie go to an early class and Jadzia goes to one before lunchtime. Because of those classes, Yoli wasn’t actually at the market when her victory was announced. I was there with Jadzia and Joseph. Jadzia stood in for her mama in the photos with the other winners.
Later in the day, my youngest brother Jon was going to have a party to celebrate his birthday and his graduation from police academy. Because of that, my parents and my brother Justin’s family were in town and they came to the market in time to see Yoli get her prize (after dance class was finished).
The only disappointment in all this was the low number of contest entrants. Back in 2007 when Yoli first entered the pie contest (which was held in conjunction with Ferguson’s 4th of July festivities), there were 35 entries. I was unable to count this year’s entries, but there were certainly fewer than 10.
Over the years the market folks have tinkered with different contest formats — ditching an overall pie contest and instead holding multiple contests (“berries,” “tomato,” “apple,” etc) — but the number of competitors has never been as high as it was in 2007. Is it the fact that the contests have moved dates (and aren’t tied to the 4th of July)? Is it a lack of publicity beforehand? I dunno. But we’ll hope next year attracts more folks.
Until then, Yoli gets to bask in the glory of her achievement.
