Annual festival attracts nutty folks, winners

Thousands of people, some in costume, some not, turned out for the annual Peanut Butter Festival in Brundidge on Saturday to participate in a 5K, watch the Nutter Butter Parade, sample interesting peanut butter sandwiches and catch a glimpse of artisans demonstrating their crafts – such as basket weaving and cane juice making.

Among Saturday’s activities was the judging of the annual peanut butter recipe contest. Annette Bryan of Brundidge won the overall blue ribbon at the Peanut Butter Recipe contest held in conjunction with the 23rd Peanut Butter Festival in Brundidge Saturday.

Bryan is well known around this neck of the woods for her chocolate pies topped with meringues that peaks at about six inches. So, she was a bit hesitant to alter her original and “secret” recipe by adding peanut butter in order to compete in the annual contest.

“Several friends insisted that I enter the contest but I didn’t want to ruin a chocolate pie by adding peanut butter,” Bryan said with a smile. “I like peanut butter and I like it with chocolate in Reese’s Pieces but I didn’t think chocolate/peanut butter pie filling would be good with a meringue.”

When she entered the pie in the competition, Bryan announced that she has “just ruined a chocolate pie.”

Well, that “ruined” chocolate/peanut butter pie took first place honors in the pie category of the Peanut Butter Recipe Contest and then the blue ribbon as the overall best recipe in the contest.

“I was shocked,” Bryan said. “I never thought about winning. I just wanted to support the Festival.”

Bryan and her original chocolate/peanut butter pie recipe will be featured in an upcoming edition of Blue Ribbon Hunter, a web-based food show on Yahoo.com.

Courtney Kierce, Blue Ribbon Hunter senior supervising producer, and a film crew were in Brundidge Saturday to film the Peanut Butter Recipe Contest and other peanut butter events at the Festival.

Tammy Powell, a member of the sponsoring Brundidge Study Club, said more than 40 entries competed for blue ribbons in five categories – cakes, cookies, candies, pies and miscellaneous in both the adult and youth categories.

The blue ribbon winners were Bryan, overall winner; Kendra Hetrick, adult cakes; Chelsey Holland, youth cakes; Susan Duckworth, adult candy; Leah Grace Qualls, youth candy; Kate Taylor, adult cookies; Weston Brown, youth cookies; Annette Bryan, adult pies; Audrey Law, youth pies; and Grace Lsuwarata, miscellaneous, coconut peanut butter curry.

“It’s amazing that cooks are able to keep coming up with so many different ways to use peanut butter in recipes,” Powell said. “The different ingredients used in combination with peanut butter are different and they are good.”

Powell expressed appreciation to all of those who entered the annual Peanut Butter Recipe and encouraged cooks to begin looking for different ways to use peanut butter in recipes in anticipation of next year.

“The year, we had a Blue Ribbon Hunter winner and who knows what recognition will come to next year’s winner,” she said.