“Mama T” AKA Chef Tina Ferguson-Riffe is best known for her award-winning desserts featured at her restaurant Smoke Berkeley between 2011 and 2021.
“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”
– Virginia Woolf.
Before graduating from the California Culinary Academy in 1999 and attending a Tratteur Master Class at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris in 2001, Tina won a Blue Ribbon for “Best Apple Pie” at the State Fair of Texas in l981. She also won awards for her Pecan Pralines, Cookies and Holiday Salad at the State Fair.
In l984, she won a Blue Ribbon for her Chocolate Pecan Pie at the Blanco County Fair. These award-winning desserts and many others she created over the last 40 years are the basis for Mama T’s Pies and Desserts.