eat.drink.blog - Australian food bloggers conference

It was an honour to be the first cab off the rank yesterday at the inaugural Australian Food Bloggers Conference. Many of us mentioned a wonderful bonus from blogging is being a member of an awesome community and the day (and night!) certainly validated that.

I’ll update other parts of my discussion later – but first the bit I skipped over due to lack of time.

The Amateur Gourmet posted Ten Rules for Food Blogging last month. It’s been a great talking point, including a discussion over at Lisa Dempster. Here’s my version:

The Food Nazi's food blogging top 10 tips

1. Focus on what you are passionate about? What type of a food worshipper are you – cooking, preserves, baking, eating out, in search of the best coffee, working your way through a massive cookbook collection or are you the leftovers queen? You tend to write best about what you are most passionate about.

2. Take photos, preferably without a flash. But in reality, I think a post without a photo is better than every post with a very bad photo! Resist uploading lots of fullsize, downloading-guzzling photographs.
At Eat.Drink.Blog there were many varying opions on this

3. Most blogs have a life of their own. Unless they are an over-engineered, PR-strategised assignment – blogs tend to evolve in directions that we don’t always anticipate. Just go with the flow, you can always rename or subtitle your blog later.

4. Read other food blogs, comment when a post inspires you. But resist blanket commenting on every blog just for the sake of it. One well thought comment or hearty support is better than 5 mediocre, nothing comments. Show that you’ve actually thought about what the blogger is saying/doing.

5. Update frequently – yes. And while three times a week is a good aim, quality tends to win over quantity. Three mundane posts about an average cup of coffee you drank in a café last week is more likely to cause a drop off in readers, than one well thought through post a week.

6. If you are busy, do a short post updating your readers with what’s going on and when you expect to get back on schedule. Share a little about your life but if your post is about food rather than parenting – a full update on the ins and outs of your family/dog/cat/job etc will probably turn off more readers than the few it snares.

7. Ask for help or feedback when appropriate. Don’t be afraid to post disasters, they tend to pull people out of the woodwork to comment. We can’t be perfect all the time and blogging about it is a great way to learn.

8. If you are new to blogging and want more readers get involved in blog events and even offer to host one if you have the time. (Is my blog burning? is a good source).

9. Get help with the nitty gritty of blogging when you need it. Food Blog S’cool have great advice on food pron photography through to dealing with spam.

10. Have fun. If blogging is your hobby not your job – to hell with the rules!

What are you're thoughts?


PS: Great to put faces to so many names. Hopefully we'll all put up information from our talks at the conference website, though it might take a little time for a few heads to clear first! Thanks to the wonderful organiser - Ed, Reem, April and Mellie who did a stellar job, Mistress Tammi who moderated the panels and kept us in line, The Essential Ingredient for providing a great venue, Daylesford & Hepburn Springs Mineral Water for keeping us hydrated, Der Raum for supplying the hangovers amazing herbal coctails (chamomile infused vermouth with dry ice - wow!) and the fantastic crew at St Ali who fed and watered us. Special thanks to the chef for providing so many enticing meat-free alternative courses.

coming soon...

Loving all your thoughts in relation to talking at the conference tomorrow about how and why we blog.

If you've got more to say on the subject, this is your last chance to add to the discussion. Go for it!





PS: made the most fantastically easy dish this week - green prawns rubbed with homemade harissa, left to marinate an hour and then pan fried. Simple and absolutely stunning.

thinking about how and why we blog about food

The inaugural Australian Food and Drink Bloggers Conference is happening this Sunday. I've been musing quietly to myself on the journey from initial rumbles two or three years ago, about having our own event in conjunction with the annual food and wine festival, to what is happening this weekend.

The good news is it's a fully (yet ethically!) sponsored event so we can sit and chat, be fed and watered at zero cost but the downside is it's a bit like Willy Wonka's golden ticket - places are limited and every seat has been duly balloted and alloted. Unfortunately it's not going to be a forum for inexperienced or want-to-be bloggers, so I wonder just where I'll take my contribution to the panel on How and Why We Blog.

I can only talk from my perspective, blogging for the last five years or so. But I wonder if you are coming (or not and want me to report back here about what I covered) are there any burning questions you wish answered or explored under the scope of the session.

Looking back on some of my high (and low) points of blogging as I have done today, for me it's the interaction with readers and other bloggers through the comments that make blogging worth it. I love the feisty discussions on ethics, as much as the joys of having a reader share their tweaks to the recipes I've posted.

Blogging about food is ultimately a highly sociable forum. Please fell welcome to join in.

vignettes

What you need comes to you

I tripped off to the new(ish) Fitzroy market on Saturday before Armageddon hit. It reminded me of Glebe market when I first went there twenty-something years ago. Smaller. But Has Promise.

The rent from the stalls at the market goes to Fitzroy School’s Kitchen Garden project. That’s reason enough to support it.

A couple of days before I’d made a batch of marinated olives. Carbon dating the original recipe*, I scribbled it down and first made them in the mid ‘80s. It’s a simple concoction – a few herbs, good Kalamata olives, a decent olive oil. I’d assembled the marinade bar one vital ingredient – a couple of bay leaves. Too bad I thought, I'm sure it will be ok without it. And forgot about it.

At the Fitzroy market my eyes fell upon a big tub of laurel branches, a generous stallholder giving them away. Take two they urged. No one’s enough there’s so many leaves on the branch. A nice chat, then off home with the lush foliage peeking out of my bag.

The missing bay leaves, fresh and vibrant, now added to the marinated olives.





Follow your instincts

Before I skipped out the door in the last of the sunlight, I’d put the tagine in the laundry tub to soak. The terracotta pot, when not used every day, needs a bit of a dip, time to dry and then a rub with oil to season it before cooking.

At lunchtime I whipped up a simple vegetable tagine with a big dob of harissa from my freshly harvested chillies, threw in some left over green olives and gently put it in a cold oven. The plan was to cook it all afternoon on very low (about 125C) and forget about it til dinner.

With the sun still high in the sky but feeling a little lazy after my morning wander, I drove rather than walked the kilometre or so up the road and submitted myself to a much needed massage.

Relaxed and a little dazed I stumbled out onto the darkened street and wondered where I was. Had I been transported to a winter’s afternoon in London? Not even 3 and the sky was so dark, every car had its lights on. Coming back to my senses, I was full of foreboding and started driving home. In the short trip the sky opened and pelted me with hail. It was a storm on monolithic proportions.

Safely inside, the house was infused with the aroma of the slow cooking tagine, locals tweeted amazing images of impromptu rivers running down city streets, hail stones the size of lemons and general chaos.

It was quite a storm.

And quite a tagine!


veggie tagine ready for a long slow cook: eggplant, pumpkin, leeks, fennel, green olives, parsnip, homegrown cherry tomatoes and harissa

Seasons

I don’t need a calendar to know when autumn has arrived. Nor look for fallen leaves to crunch under my feet. Autumn officially begins the morning I awake craving porridge (oatmeal) and when I get the urge to make a big pot of soup.

Today is the day. Goodbye summer. Farewell asparagus. See you later berries. Bring on the pumpkin!

Porridge for breakfast (with crushed nuts and maple syrup) and a pot of autumn vegetables and bean soup cooking on the stove.

I'm ready!


*Marinated olives


The original recipe
(Source unknown)
2 c Kalamata olives
1 c olive oil
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2-3 dried red chillies, crushed
2 bay leaves

Mix ingredients in a bowl then transfer to a sterilized jar. Marinate for 1 week, stirring occaisionally. Use the marinade for salad dressings etc or reuse.

My version
In a clean jar combine fresh chillies, black pepper corns, bay leaves and lots of garlic with the best quality olives and olive oil you can find. Keep out of direct light, at room temperature and try to resist eating them for at least a week. Shake the jar daily.

Eat.Drink.Blog and Exhibit

Just on the off chance you are one of the few Australasian food bloggers who don't know - on March 21st the inaugural Eat.Drink.Blog underground conference will be held in Melbourne. It will be small and sweet this time, attendance is free but the catch is seats are limited and you need to register your interest now to get one of the 45 seats.

Oh and I've been asked to be on a panel talking about how and why we blog!

A side event with the conference is an exhibition open to all Australian and New Zealand food bloggers. The rules are simple (the main one being it must be your own work and has appeared in your blog in '09/'10) but be quick the deadline is soon - Midnight Sunday March 7 2010.

The Guidelines and small print.

1. Submissions are open to Australian and New Zealand food and drink blogs only.

2. Try and limit your submissions to half a dozen or less.

3. Each picture will be framed and the entrant will received the framed copy. At some point we will need to get hold of a high resolution copy of the pic for printing.

4. The pictures should be original works from 2009/2010, have been blogged and the copyright owned by the entrant.

5. In return for SBS Food’s support, I’ve said they can include each of the pictures in the exhibition in an online slideshow which will include a blogger profile on the SBS Food website. By entering you will be agreeing to this.

6. That’s about it. All entrants will be invited to the cocktail launch.

7. A judge cannot vote on their own work but we’d love them all to enter.

8. That’s all.

To enter - submit your photos (maxium 6) to the Eat.Drink.Blog.2010 Flickr group by Sunday night. A panel of judges (all food bloggers) will select entries to be exhibited and framed courtesy of SBS.

For more information check out the conference site.

baked eggs

It’s time for lunch
It’s after two
What on earth am I going to do?

Baked eggs are not the best “I need to eat now” kind of food. But boy do they ever hit just the right spot.

I’ve been playing with this recipe for a while. It is simple, flexible and once you understand the basics, the combinations are endless.

Although it’s not dairy-free due to the luscious inclusion of butter, olive oil is an ok substitute as my recipe contains no cream or cheese. If you have a good feel for flavour combining, just use your imagine. If you're after some ideas, pick an ingredient, grab Stephanie Alexander’s The Cook's Companion and consult the notes on what it goes well with. She’ll guide you through the right companions.

I’ve been given a lot of sage lately and checked with Stephanie as to what non-meaty things it goes with. Leeks! Butter! Eggs! Oh yes…baked eggs with leeks and sage here I come…but first some basics.




Baked egg basics

• This is such a flexible recipe – just as easy for one as it is for six.
• Use two eggs per person (unless you are very hungry).
• Choose an ovenproof dish that will snugly hold the number of eggs you want to cook. They want to nestle next to each other.
• Use an even smaller dish if you are doing plain eggs, just butter the dish, dot the eggs with butter and sprinkle with salt, pepper and herbs if desired.
• If using a base e.g. chilli beans or a thick tomato sauce, create a well with the back of a spoon for the eggs to sit in separately.
• Cook in a bain maire, an oven dish filled with water to go half way up the dish you are baking the eggs in – the eggs seem softer and fluffier when cooked this way.
• Eggs like to be cooked low and slow. Be patient.
• Remember to pre-heat the oven to 180c (175c fan-forced).
• Cooking times vary depending on how you like your yolks. 10 minutes is very runny, 15 in between, 20 softly set (ideal for pregnant women and those with a compromised immune system).

Baked eggs with leeks and sage
(Serves 1)

1/2 –1 leek, sliced about 2-3 cm wide
Oil/butter
4-6 fresh sage leaves
2 organic eggs
“Greek fasting fetta” (dairy-free cheese) – about 1 tablespoon, crumbled
Salt and pepper.

Melt some butter in a small frying pan. Use olive oil if you’d prefer it or half and half oil and butter. Cook the leeks on low, covered with a lid for 5-10 minutes til soft.

Grease your ovenproof dish. Spread the cooked leeks in an even layer in the bottom of the dish. Rip up a couple of sage leaves and scatter over the leeks. Carefully break your eggs one at a time and place on top. Now sprinkle on the crumbled fetta, more sage and salt and pepper if desired.

Cook at 180c for 15-20 minutes.


Fresh out of the oven. I like my eggs just set


Baked eggs also go well with arepas.

last days of summer

With days still spiking into the sticky mid-30s, I haven't wanted to turn the oven on much. Late summer is all about fruit. The cherries ended as abruptly as they arrived, apricots have had their day, peaches are still doing their thing and plums are stealing the scene.

When it comes to berries I'm a stickler for organics, in season. The local blue berries and strawberries have been spectacular this month - eaten within a day of purchase, at room temperature. Why would you want to trick up such stunning flavours?

There's a hint of autumn in the air, a whisper of cooler days to come. But for now there's a few weeks left of grazing the fruit bowl, lazy salads for dinner and sushi for lunch.

the week that was

A quickie – as this tennis-elbow-over-use-painful-arm kind of thing means I really should keep away from the computer for a while.

But while I’m here – a few things from the past week.

Cooking:
The muffins just keep getting better. I’ve found that 3 bananas are even better than two, ground macadamia nuts go well with chocolate and they can always take a bit more spice. Today I supplemented the last of the unbleached white flour with 50% buckwheat and they were perfect.

Eating lots of salads – a tin of legumes, another of tuna, lots of fresh greens, fennel, Tommy toes from the garden and olives, bought together with a mustardy vinaigrette.

Quiet weekend – perfect for an espresso and some journal writing.




Harvest:
Tomatoes continue doing their thing. Have slow roasted a big tray with some garlic, slipped off the skins and whizzed up the puree and frozen in batches for winter. On one of those hot, steamy summer nights no less.

Grapes have been smaller in number of bunches this year but taste wonderful. We stand under the vine and them straight into our mouths.




The Vietnamese mint is the happiest I’ve ever seen it. Very lush. Hopefully it won’t go the way of the peppermint that flourished last summer then died all of a sudden.



Mushroom identification anyone?



Found these little fungi lurking in the pot of rosemary today. Any ideas on what they are?

delicious and nutritious: please discuss

I couldn't have got a more perfect long weekend in Wellington - the weather was warm, the sunsets golden and the people as wonderful as ever.

While the social highlight was a huge party on the South Coast with the best view of the glorious sun setting over the Marlborough Sounds (not something you see often from Wellington) - I was one free glass of sparkling wine away from asking strangers at random "Do I know you? Did we bonk in the '80's?" Fortunately I was distracted by the many luminaries, a freshly announced Oscar nominee, some of the countries leading visual artists and rock stars...and catching up with people I didn't recognise after over 20 years.

Foodwise the standout was The Matterhorn, that I have mentioned before still dishing up great modern kiwi cuisine with unusually good service.

This t-shirt is in the running for the most curious thing I saw while on holiday.


Cuba Street, Wellington (with vegetarian sister looking on with horror)

Oh that kiwi sense of humour!

But perhaps the oddest site was my visit coinciding with a rather unusual rugby event, The Sevens, where whole tribes of people don matching costumes and wander the city for two and a half days. Some even go watch the games but many just appear to hang out in the streets or along the waterfront drinking vast quantities of liquor. There were scores of Tiger Wood's, smurfs, marmite jars, beer cans, Fred Daggs and more film and tv characters than you could poke a stubby at.




Now...if only I could catch up on some sleep and get this busy week under my belt then I can get back to cooking the truckload of tommy toe tomatoes that have fruited in abundance in my garden!

bbiab*

I’ll be away for a few days partying across “the ditch”. Just keep talking amongst yourself while I’m gone.

I loved the discussion on the last post, glad to know I’m not alone. I’m wondering though if anyone under 30 responded? Maybe we of the 30-up age group see this kind of marketing as some kind of affront but there’s another generation that actually welcomes it?

Please enlighten me. I won’t bite. I genuinely want to learn the other point of view.

Have a great (long for some) weekend everyone.



* be back in a bit