05/08/2026
Tony has featured in the Gippsland Times!
Have a read of the amazing day Tony experienced at the Victorian Cooking Championships. 👨🍳
A Day Cooking at the Victorian Championships
Alarm at 4am, quick shower, dressed, check packing of equipment for the final time. On the road by 4.30am.
Then five minutes up the road out of nowhere in the darkness a big buck kangaroo appears, determined to join me for the day via the front passenger door. Quick swerve and the 7 foot roo glances off the back of the car with a solid thump and crashes off into the bush. I don’t stop. No time. Cannot do anything for the roo and any damage to the car will have to wait for another day. Not the best start to a big day. Heart rate is up and doesn’t seem to come down all day.
Rosedale bakery for egg and bacon roll and coffee, then on to Gippsland Tafe by 6am. Car seems undamaged strangely enough. Just a bit of fur on the back corner I’m early and nervous. We pack the minibus with boxes and boxes of gear. We have to take all our own equipment and ingredients for the competition. Eight students on board, two instructors and Captain Kellie Smith at the wheel. We arrive at Holmsglen Culinary school at 8am and assemble all our gear in the foyer outside the kitchens.
Most of us have never been here before and I for one am shocked at the number of contestants. Anxiety is running high for them too it seems. And the senior judges and chefs are all wearing giant tall white hats that make them look at least 7 foot tall : nearly as intimidating as my big kangaroo from earlier in the day.
Theres a briefing in a large lecture theatre where we are all told that we are all winners just to have qualified to be here, that we should enjoy ourselves and that the judges are all here to help. None of us believe any of this. We are not having fun, we haven’t won anything yet and the tall hats and French accents are menacing. The chief Judge tells us he is 65yrs old and that we can all have a long career in this industry. I resist the urge to tell him I’m 66yrs old and this is my first state competition. I’m forty years older than most of the contestants.
We are finally allocated a kitchen and a starting time. It seems all my fellow Gippslanders are cooking in the morning session from 10am to 12.30pm and I am cooking from 1pm. I help the others get their gear in place and then retreat to the hallway. Suddenly I’m all alone and my anxiety is building. I start chatting to the other contestants hanging around, but they are pretty anxious too. They probably think I am a judge because I’m older and dressed in my Kitchen whites. At least I am not wearing a big tall hat. I check my boxes of gear and discover I have two broken eggs and that I have forgotten the baking paper. After some quick problem solving, my eggs are replaced and some baking paper is found. Disaster averted. And its only 10.30am. I hang out in the canteen for a while and then start wandering up and down the corridor looking in the viewing windows to see how my fellow Gippslanders are going. I make eye contact and smile at some hoping to offer encouragement, but mostly they are too busy to look. I chat with a couple of contestants Mums who are watching through the glass to. We talk about what they are cooking and whether it is going well or not. How many times they have practiced and how important it is to them. I’m getting more nervous just hearing how nervous these other contestants are.
Finally the first shift is over and their dishes have been judged and the second plates are displayed on tables outside for everyone to look at. There are lots of photos being taken and lots of finger pointing. The dishes all have a high standard of presentation that spooks me, and the fine dining finesse is clear. I feel like an imposter. I know my dish will taste great, but can I make it look as good as these do.
Finally the contestants emerge after cleaning down the kitchens. They are all relieved it’s over and mostly unhappy with what they have done : “ mucked up the thing “, “forgot an ingredient”, “overcooked the lamb” etc etc. It seemed everyone had a disaster of some sort. That they managed nonetheless is not clear to them, they are only focusing on the negatives at this stage. None of this negative chat is making me feel any more confident. My heart rate is building as I am told where I am to cook and when we will start. To be honest my heart has been pounding ever since I hit that kangaroo at 4.30am. I’ve got all my gear unpacked, everything in it’s place. The space is quite a bit larger than I am used to at Gippsland so I am able to set up for a sequence of tasks without being cluttered. This helps a lot. I was dreading having to store everything under the bench and in boxes.
So this is how it goes for the next two hours
Wash hands thoroughly before beginning. Make sure the big hats are watching. There are points to be lost everywhere if hygiene protocols are breached.
Peel and core two pears. Put on to poach with sugar , red wine, spices and peels. This is my set and forget dessert. Slow, but easy to do. Only risk is boiling dry. Very easy to bring together at the end of service and looks and tastes great.
Peel and dice onion, carrot and celery for chicken jus.
Dice onion, pancetta, mint and parsley and lettuce for braised peas. Peel and cut batons of sweet potato and par boil prior to flour ,egg and crumbing.
Wash hands again and change to raw chicken red board. Break down Spatchcock, removing breast meat and debone the marylands leaving the skin on to make ballotines with. Mince chicken breast with knife and add garlic, tarragon, salt and pepper. Place in bowl with egg yolk and cream and mix thoroughly. Move mince into a piping bag and refrigerate.
Dice up chicken frame and fry off with mirepoix to make base for jus sauce.
Time to tidy up and make room to make ballotines. Spread marylands on board and fill with minced breast meat. Pull the skin back over the whole thing and roll tightly in foil to form a sausage shape ready for roasting. Place ballotines in moderate oven to roast.
Clean up bench and equipment and change chopping board. Wash hands again after handling raw chicken.
Deglaze the Pan with bones and veg with water and simmer and reduce.
Flour egg and crumb the sweet potatoe batons. Add a generous amount of parmesan cheese to crumb mix. Shallow fry on all sides until golden and crispy. Set aside on a rack to dry.
Fry pancetta and onion until just coloured, then add frozen peas, herbs and chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Thicken with butter and flour. Set aside and keep warm over pilot light.
The tall hats have paid me several visits, asking questions and watching how I do things. They are generally being very helpful and not nearly as intimidating as they appeared earlier on. We have a laugh and my heart rate drops back a notch or two. But still I am under the pump. I’m ahead of time I think, so can take my time plating up.
The chicken has been resting and is just cooked through nicely. My sweet potatoe batons need warming and they are ready to go.
I add the diced lettuce to the peas and toss it until it wilts into the peas. A few fresh herbs, check seasoning and its ready to plate.
My chicken jus has reduced to about a cupful and is getting quite intense. I tinker with fresh orange juice and peel and some parsley stalks to freshen it up and season lightly. Jus is nice, but not delicious and I’m running out of time to do anything more about it. Some red wine vinegar would lift it , but I did not bring any. So I serve it up.
Two platesSmall pile of braised peas just off centre of plate. Three pieces of chicken medallion on top of peas. Crumbed baton beside with garnish of purple Thai Basil flower stem on top of baton. Looks a treat. Jus sparingly drizzled over chicken. Remainder of jus served in small jug for judges to pour.
I’m first to plate up in my section. There is a five minute window for service. Every minute beyond that window incurs a two point penalty.
Now I’ve got thirty minutes to put up two serves of spiced poached pears. I pull the pears from the pan and put in the blast chiller to cool. Never seen one of these before. Seriously cold.
Begin reducing poaching liquid to a syrup. Whip some cream in the meantime with vanilla and maple syrup.
Service window arrives and I’m first to serve again. Puddle of syrup in bottom of bowl with cream on the side. Pear vertical with syrup drizzled over the top. Garnish of lime dust over the cream and a sparce sprinkle of thyme leaves over everything.
I’m done, my only concern is the Chicken Jus. It was only OK and was starting to form a skin in the jug. Grrr. But that was it. I did the best I could : “ left it all on the park “ as they say in footy parlance. Time to clean up. My Gippsland mates all come in and help me clean up. Fantastic.
Now the Awards ceremony. We all cram into the bar lounge area and are offered drinks and snacks prepared by the tall hats and their students earlier in the day. First the first years and Gippsland wins two Gold medals. Justine a cook of some fifteen years experience, whom I met for the first time the day before is totally surprised and is crying tears of delight. We are all so pleased for her. It’s beautiful. She is still crying five minutes later. Then Zeek our young 17yr old apprentice wins gold too, but is cranky he doesn’t win the best of year award. He knows he made a small mistake with his dish, but he had his heart set on winning. The contrast of reactions between Justine and Zeek is stark. I have sympathy for Zeek because I came here with something to prove too. Like most contestants here today I’m here to win if I can.
Second year Zoe wins a silver and is happy this is her best result to date. Watch this space Zoe is already a very clever cook. Then Jess our Victorian apprentice of the year from last year wins gold again, but doesn’t win the overall champion that she did the year before. Jess is cool about it and says she didn’t cook as well as she hoped. But she has qualified to go to the Nationals and has a chance to redeem herself there. It’s tough at the top. Jess is hungry to win.
turn up and they are both from Gippsland. So we are going to do well here. Jess and Kara win bronze and Silver respectively and Kara wins the overall champion and is delighted.
Next category is the non apprentice category, my category. The largest category and most competitive I’m told. We are the self employed, the food crazy, the wanna be Masterchefs or those looking for internationally recognized qualifications etc. There are no Bronze Medals awarded at all. Then Silver, Silver, Silver, about fifteen of them and still my name hasn’t been called and I’m thinking my dish was at least worthy of a bronze, so maybe they liked my sauce after all. My hopes are rising and then they call my name and Silver it is. I get a bit of a rockstar round of applause because I had been talking to everyone all morning. Or perehaps because I am by far the oldest competing. I’m very thrilled of course and then I have one last fantasy. Maybe there are no gold medals and I might be the best silver. But no : there are four golds in fact and one belongs to our Leongatha girl Thoa Do . I saw her dish on the practice day and thought if it tastes as good as it looks it would be very hard to beat. Her husband and two small boys are there and they all get in the action with photos and one of her boys loudly asks “did you win mum “. Everyone laughs : it’s a very touching moment.
The bus is packed and we are all back in. We arrive at Morwell campus about 9pm to unload gear and put the tea towels in the washing machine. Then I drive another hour and a half home, watching for kangaroos all the way. It’s been a very long day.
Thank you to Tafe for providing me and my fellow students with such a rich experience. And special thanks to Kellie Smith our inspirational mentor who encouraged us all to have a go and literally got us there on the day. The tall hatted folk, of which Kellie was one, were fantastic and I will definitely compete again if the opportunity arises. Next time my sauce will be practiced and perfect.
Tony Dawkins
Gippsland Tafe student Cert 111 in Commercial Cookery
