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Winning the May Grantourismo Travel Blogging Competition

June 7, 2010
by Corinne Mossati

I don’t usually write personal blogs on Gourmantic but today I am making an exception.

Last month, I entered the May Grantourismo Travel Blogging Competition. With the theme of travel and food, I felt it conveyed the heart and palate of Gourmantic. So after giving it some thought, I got serious with my keyboard.

And I won.

My travel and food themed story was a food memory within a travel memory, a coming of age of a culinary kind, narrated in a different writing style to the way I usually write on Gourmantic. It was a piece that I wrote from the heart.

Writing is in my blood. It is a passion I cannot ignore, one that has been known to consume me at times. I have been writing most of my life, but the last time I entered a writing competition, I was fourteen years old. Throughout my formative years, I had a special man who was my coach, my mentor, my supporter. This man instilled the passion for writing in me, encouraged my self-expression from a very young age and supported me with my early writing.

Winning first prize in this competition touches me on a personal note. With it, my gratitude goes to this man who also gave me the gift of the word. Sadly, he is no longer with us to share in what would have been a very proud moment for him. His time had come last year but I know he’s smiling from the heavens.

This one is for you, Dad.

But knowing him as well as I do, he’d be saying, “Stop all this sentimentality and go celebrate!”

Celebrating Winning the May Grantourismo Travel Blogging Competition

And we did.

Champagne flows better when people are mentioned. I am very grateful for my better half, Mr G for suggesting I write about the sea urchins we ate during our holiday in Lebanon. Choosing a travel-food story was no easy task when there are so many memorable experiences we have shared.

My sincerest thanks go to HomeAway Holiday-Rentals for the generous prizes and to the inspirational travel writing duo Lara Dunston and Terence Carter from Grantourismo. Thank you for your kind words of support, coming from esteemed writers as yourselves means a lot to me.

As for our next holiday, we are looking forward to planning our next trip with great anticipation and excitement.

With this post, I am also announcing that winning the competition has given me a much-needed push. I have finally decided to use my first name in association with Gourmantic.

Corinne

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About the author

Corinne Mossati

Corinne Mossati is a drinks writer, author of GROW YOUR OWN COCKTAIL GARDEN, SHRUBS & BOTANICAL SODAS and founder/editor of Gourmantic, Cocktails & Bars and The Gourmantic Garden. She has been writing extensively about spirits, cocktails, bars and cocktail gardening in more recent years. She is a spirits and cocktail competition judge, Icons of Whisky Australia nominee, contributor to Diageo Bar Academy, cocktail developer and is named in Australian Bartender Magazine's Top 100 Most Influential List. Her cocktail garden was featured on ABC TV’s Gardening Australia and has won several awards. She is a contributor to Real World Gardener radio program and is featured in several publications including Pip Magazine, Organic Gardener, Australian Bartender and Breathe (UK). Read the full bio here.

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25 Comments

  • Congratulations Ms Gourmantic, or should I say Corinne 🙂
    Your win was well deserved and I am so happy that a topic about my country won, thanks to your writing prowess! It was a fantastic article. I hope more will come.
    Fouad
     

    • Thank you for the lovely comment, Fouad.
      And I thought you might like to be among the first to know my name 🙂

  • Congratulations Corinne! You’re an excellent writer and with all the places you’ve been I bet you have more than enough inspiration to write about for decades! You certainly inspire me to travel (although that admittedly doesn’t take much!) 🙂

    • Thank you Forager 🙂 You’re right about having so much inspiration and travel material to last me a long time. But I always look forward to new adventures!

  • Thank you so much, Corinne, for this touching post – it brought a tear to my ear.
    My parents were travel inspirations to me, taking me travelling from the time I was a small child (one of my earliest memories is on a TAA plane) and dragging my sister and I around Australia for 5 years in a caravan. That trip changed my life and really made me the person I am today. My Dad died of cancer when Terry and I were living in Abu Dhabi. Fortunately, we’d found out that he had 6 months to live, so we did what he loved best and we took him travelling around Asia. I’d bought my parents to the UAE a year earlier and they absolutely loved it, and after Dad died I took Mum travelling around Europe. While that trip was intended to heal Mum’s wounds and inspire her to carry on, we spent a lot of that trip remembering Dad.
    When we travel we not only create memories for the future but we remember memories from the past. That’s why your post touched me.
    Congratulations again! Can’t wait to hear where you’re going! 🙂

    • Thank you for the thoughtful comment, Lara. Your story touched my heart. Our parents shape us in so many ways and it’s always heart-warming when we can give back some of what they’ve given us. What a wonderful way you’ve brought them both some joy in difficult times.

      We’ve got so much planning to do, once the excitement settles down! 🙂

  • Just read the winning entry. Short, unsentimental, arresting. We need more like you.
    Also, champagne is pretty nice

    • Thank you my lovely twin! 🙂 Just as I can always learn some grewat things from you!

  • Congratulations on your much deserved win; I hope the hangover is not too bad… but then again… good quality  French champers shouldn’t have such undesirable side effects ;)!  It’s also nice to put a name to the blog… just feels a bit more personal to me. Keep up the great work Corinne…. and toast to your further, inevitable success with Gourmantic. 😀

    • What a lovely surprise, Dudley! 🙂 No hangover, just a little strange feeling the next day for going public with the name, but it didn’t last long! It feels good to connect with people with my name. Thank you for your encouragement 🙂

  • One of my favorite posts of yours – congratulations and nice to learn your first name 🙂  Always a wonderful collection of photos, stories, and food; a blog to be proud of!

  • Sometimes writing a personal blog post can be the best way to express our inner feelings. I knew you had a way with prose, your comments have always been artful.
    And congrats with a capital C, I only wish I had the guts to enter a competition myself.

    • They surely can provide release. I tend to write them at times in private but leave them out of Gourmantic. This one is a special exception.
      Thank you for the kind compliment, Cate 🙂 Always a pleasure to read and comment on your posts.

  • Great, touching article. Well done on the win! Its always great to see your work appreciated.

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