If you’re handy in the kitchen this is one competition you should get involved with.

Each year CWA Central Western group hold a Cookery Competition. The competition, sponsored by ‘The Land’ is not only open to CWA members, they also welcome community members to get baking and enter the competition.

We caught up with CWA Orange Branch Secretary, Deborah Marr and Treasurer, Helen Karrasch as they ready themselves for the competition.

Deborah has been with the CWA since the end of 2011 and enters the competition each year, with a few winning jams under her belt.

Deborah explained, “For me this competition is about honing your skills around hospitality, it’s nice to be able to make something to give as gifts, that’s homemade and good quality.

“I come from a family of cooks, my Mum and my aunt, and her relatives were excellent cooks. I usually give what I’ve made to family and they always think its very good whether you win or not,” Deborah smiled, “They are always very complementary.”

“If you want to be really good, it can’t be knock about and if you want to win, it’s in the detail.”

Helen added, “It’s quite surprising when you go to the cookery competition and you see five marble cakes there, they cut the cakes and they are all totally different using exactly the same recipe and exactly the same instructions, so it’s really about using those individual skills and let me tell you, There’s art in carrying your cakes.”

The Land Cookery Competition at the group level will include the 15 branches of the Central Western Group, the winners will go through to the state level, which is held at the state conference.

“It’s a big competition and its very competitive at the highest level,” said Deborah.

Judging will be held for the cookery competition in the Orange CWA Hall on Friday 13th at 9:30am, entries are to be on the table by 9am. The winner will be announced at the Orange City Library at 2pm that afternoon. If you have any enquiries, please contact Jan on 0400458514.

If baking isn’t your thing maybe you can get involved with the Handicraft competition.

Each branch chooses their best item which is sent into group for the competition. The winning items from group go on to State level where they are also judged at the annual conference.

Judging will be held in the Orange CWA rooms at 9am on Monday, March 9, after which all items submitted will be displayed at Orange City Library until the winner is announced on Friday March 13 at 2pm. For more information please contact Pam on 02 6767 1044.