It is that time of year again when the stirrings of the season change brings our minds to daydreaming about cool autumn days, cozy nights and nourishing food. It also brings our farm fresh sweet potatoes from their hiding places under the ground to our annual Sweet Potato Cooking Contest!

Again this year, I am bringing the farm to the city! The 8th Annual Sweet Potato Cooking Contest will be held at the Homegrown Families Health and Education Center. We will have outdoor tents, live music, activities for the kids, lots of amazing food and beautiful prizes! You know the schpeel ~ invite your friends, enter a dish to win, come to taste, judge and dance into the harvest season with good friends, family, and livemusic!

This year we are supporting Sistas Caring 4 Sistas – Doulas for Social Justice

In 2016 Homegrown Babies: Asheville Childbirth Education & Doula Services was honored to collaborate with the Buncombe Upstream: The Community Centered Health Home which is creating change in our Western North Carolina in community to address the fact that black babies are 2.4 times more likely to die in infancy than white babies. With the amazing leadership of many women in the Pisgah View and Hillcrest Public Housing Communities, Homegrown Babies has worked to train and mentor Black and African American women to become Birth Doulas. This program is now officially called Sistas Caring 4 Sistas (SC4S) – Doulas for Social Justice.

This work invests the much needed equity into these communities, and allows them to earn a living wage, hone skills that give back to their community, cross the color line here in Asheville, and support women of diverse backgrounds throughout their pregnancy and birth and postpartum journeys.

Contest Information and Rules:
~ Sweet Potatoes must be one of the main ingredients in your dish
~ There are both sweet and savory categories
~ There is no fee to enter your dish for judging, but there is a $10/per person tasting/judging/voting fee
~ You must bring your own serving utensils and buffet warmer/crockpot if your dish needs to be warm
~ There will be limited electrical hook-up for crock-pot dishes
~ All entries will remain anonymous and will be voted on by attendees
~ Judging/eating begins promptly at 5:00 p.m. Any dishes brought after 5:30 p.m. will likely not have enough votes to win.
~ There are fantastic prizes including pottery from amazing River Arts District potters, organic sweet potatoes grown on my farm and more! There are first place prizes in both the sweet and savory categories as well as an overall most unusual/original dish

You do not have to enter to participate! We need lots of tasters too! If you are coming to solely judge, we ask you to bring a potluck dish to compliment all of the sweet potatoes!

Bring anyone you like and children are most definitely welcome! We love dogs, but it is a little too much at this event to have them. Please leave your sweet pups at home!

Thanks for your support and we look forward to celebrating the season with you!