I’m very delighted to announce that I am the winner of the ‘Best Veggie Patch Name’ in the Grow It Local Awards.
The Grow It Local Awards are a celebration of creativity, community, gardening and fun and judged by Costa Georgiadis (Gardening Australia), Paul West, Sophie Thompson (Gardening Australia), Koren Helbig, Jac Semmler, Dave Bowman, Sabrina Hahn and Casey Joy. There were a total of 452 entries in various categories (up from 198 last year).
Here’s my entry in the Grow It Local Awards in the ‘Best Veggie Patch Name’ category. You can view the announcement of the winner on Instagram here.
Grow It Local Awards: Best Veggie Patch Name
“What’s in a name?
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In 2009, I set to create a website that combined our life of travel, food and drink with my passion for writing. I was after an original one-word name that embodied it all. Overnight, Mr TGG came up with Gourmantic. The website launched in June 2009 to great success, Gourmantic became a well-respected brand, we became known as ‘The Gourmantics’ and the rest as they say was history.
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In 2020, I realised that I had too many gardening notes on my phone and they would be best on a website. I pondered, what’s a good name for an edible and cocktail garden? Then I had a light bulb💡moment (actually, it was a 🤦♀️ moment!). The alliteration was spot on and it described my veggie patch perfectly.
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Initially, The Gourmantic Garden was born as an offshoot of gourmantic.com but this seedling had strong roots and very soon after, it stood on its own. When Gourmantic ceased publication after 11 years, the name evolved into the ‘Grow It. Eat It. Drink It.’ ethos, complementing my work at cocktailsandbars.com.
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And there you have it. From writing about the romance of travel & the Sydney food/restaurant/small bar/event scene to going back to the roots, writing about growing my own produce, eating it and drinking it.”