Reel Bites of Dorset Pie Contest                   Screen Bites, Dorset’s Food Film Festival, will mark the end of its first three years with a screening of the Fox Searchlight film Waitress, at Sturminster Newton’s new venue The Exchange on Saturday 3rd November. The film is the story of Jenna, an inspired inventor of pies who works at the local diner where her culinary creations are famous. She calls every new pie by a quirky name. We want you to do the same thing. Screen Bites has a mission to bring the best of Dorset grown and produced food to its audience, and to bring food-themed documentary and feature films to villages they wouldn’t usually reach. This year we have teamed up with Dorset Food Week, which is right in the middle of our festival, to serve up a pie-making contest. There are prizes for the best sweet and savoury pies, a prize for the quirkiest name, a prize for the best pie using Dorset-brewed beer and a special prize for the best traditional apple pie made with Dorset apples – Iron Pin, Melcombe Russet, Mollyanne,Tyneham Apple, Profit, Symes Seedling, Buttery d’Or (aka Buttery Door or Buttery Dough), Tom Putt, Sidney Strake, Warrior or Golden Ball. Entrants should use local ingredients wherever possible - we know you can’t grow sugar in Dorset, but the county produces excellent flour, butter, cream, cheese, eggs and lots of fruit, vegetables, meat and fish. What we are looking for is inspiration ... something a bit different ... like Jenna might have made had she lived in our area. Some of her pies had names like I Don’t Want Earl’s Baby Pie, I Can’t Have No Affair Because it’s Wrong Pie, and Falling In Love Chocolate Mousse Pie, so the name of your pie can reflect anything from the serious issues of food miles and global warming to the personal and domestic concerns of your day. The closing date for recipes, with details of local sources of ingredients, is Tuesday 25th September. The judges will then choose three finalists in each category, and they will be asked to make their pie and bring it along for judging at the Hall and Woodhouse visitor centre in Blandford on Friday 5th October, when the winners will be announced. The pies can be hot or cold (ovens will be available at the judging), sweet or savoury. The winners of the sweet and savoury category will be able to enjoy dinner for two at The Crown Hotel at Marnhull, the 2007 Dorset Food Awards Best Locals’ Pub of the Year, or The Royal Oak at Cerne Abbas, the Dorset Food Awards Best Dining Pub and the Chalk and Cheese Best Pub Chef (Darran Ridley). The maker of the best Dorset apple pie will take home a copy of Common Ground’s new Apple Source Book - Particular Recipes for Diverse Apples, the new edition of which is due out this autumn. Sponsors Hall and Woodhouse are offering the creator of the best pie using any Dorset-brewed beer the prize of their weight in Tanglefoot. The average British man would weigh 88 bottles! And there is a suitably quirky prize in store for the most interestingly named pie. The winning pies will also be available for our audience to taste at the Exchange, before the screening of Waitress, which Fox Searchlight has allowed in advance of its general release. Send the recipe for your pie, and its name, to The Secretary. Screen Bites, 16 Church Street, Wincanton, Somerset, to arrive not later than 25th September. You can email your recipe to screenbites@thanksgiving.demon.co.uk Don’t forget to include your name, address and a daytime telephone number. The finalists will be notified by Friday 28th September, ready for them to make their pies for the judges the following Friday, 5th October.
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