Festival a sweet success

Broome has served up an extra-large, juicy, yellow slice of fun, dripping with spectacular performers and delicious food for the annual Broome Mango Festival.

The week ran from November 22 to 26 and served up some charity bidding fun to support a safer community on Saturday, with the annual Broome White Ribbon Day Gala held at Broome Civic Centre.

White balloons filled the venue as auctioneer Chris Maher tempted patrons to dig deep for a good cause, followed by Miss Behave and the School of Funk and Wasamba Drummers. A highlight of the week of festivities was the traditional mango jams, chutneys and cakes tasting contest, where the town submitted their favourite fruity dishes in a bid to be crowned “master chef”.

Steve Thompson’s effort won the judges’ and public’s best cake award, with the panel picking Suzette McCoy recipe as best chutney and Justin Young made the top jam. The hungry crowd plumped for Maxine Clarke’s chutney as the tastiest, Elizabeth Vickery for making the best jam and Eva Lisle claimed the junior cook award.

Mango fanatics rocked out on the Sunday with a large slice of Mango Jammin at Goolarri’s Gimme Club. John Bennett and his four-piece band were special guests alongside Broome’s emerging musicians such as Bohemia Crawford, Taj Jamieson, Isaiah McKenna and Jacob Gregory on the night, while patrons enjoyed mango-inspired drinks, curries, desserts and preserves.

Residents revelled in acoustic solos from Yoshi Hunter and Johnny Falconer as well as band Pot Shots, with Seb Liddle, Rowin Slag, Indianna Waters and Daniel Jones.

Earlier in the week, teams took part in the Broome Lionesses Mango Trivia Night and raffle at RSL Broome.

Pick up yesterday’s copy of the Broome Advertiser for a full spread of photos of the week.