Imagine! A Lavender Cookoff!! As part of The Ohio Lavender Festival, DayBreak Lavender Farm will sponsor The First Ohio Lavender Cookoff. And we are thrilled and honored to welcome Jane Snow, the Akron Beacon Journal's award-winning Food Editor as the Chairwoman of our Judging Panel. As recently as 2005, under Jane's leadership, the Food Section of The Akron Beacon Journal received the food journalists equivalent of an Oscar!! She won First Place for Best Food Section from the Association of Food Journalists.

And she's likely to be a very discerning judge because aside from a highly sophisticated palette, she is equally as passionate about cooking with lavender ... her favorite recipe to date is a Lavender Creme Brulee but that all may change after tasting some of the CookOff entries!!

"When it comes to creative use of herbs, we want to show the country just how creative our Ohio cooks are so we decided there was not better way than a cooking contest with lavender as the star!!" says Jody Byrne, DayBreak Co-founder. "The uses of lavender in cooking are limited only by your imagination - and your nerve! You can use Lavender is savory dishes wherever you would use rosemary." "But it's equally wonderful in sweet dishes where it adds a light floral, citrus note."

Where can you find culinary lavender? "We'll have cooking lavender in the store and we'll have free copies of the rules and regulations for anyone who wants them." DayBreak Lavender Farm's store is opening on June 16, 17 and 18th and is located at the corner of SR 14 and Diagonal in Sandy's Notions across from Sabra Farms.

Because the essential oils are concentrated, the potency of the lavender buds and flowers increases with drying. In cooking, use 1/3 the quantity of dried flowers to fresh. The key to cooking with lavender is to experiment; start out with a small amount of flowers, and add more as you go.

Byrne says "I call Lavender 'the Swiss Army knife of herbs' because it is an incredibly versatile herb for healing, toiletries, crafting, landscaping, aromatherapy, homekeeping and now cooking.

"In today's culinary scene, lavender and other flowers are storming the menus as enhancements to both the flavor and appearance of food. As a member of the same family as many of our most popular herbs, it is not surprising that lavender is edible and that its use in food preparation is also returning.