Sydney Food Bloggers Spring Picnic 2010

For a long time I had hoped to meet some of my fellow food bloggers. It's great to read one another's posts and leave comments, but I have often wondered who it was sitting behind the other computer, and what would it be like meeting them face to face?!

On Saturday myself and around 40 other Sydney food bloggers converged on a small pocket of Centennial Park for a 'mad hatter' themed Spring picnic. Many of the bloggers knew each other already, and many such as myself did not. But everyone was so friendly and happy to meet fellow bloggers that it didn't matter one bit.

I was grateful that the event was themed because it made the group so much easier to find - I simply had to look out for some mad hatters with awesome food!

Tammi wore a fantastic handmade, Gaga inspired hat (which I can't believe I don't have a photo of!).. needless to say it won hat of the day :)

The picnic was organised by Billy and Karen (thank you!, and was sponsored by a range of generous sponsors including Nuffnang Australia (thank you!). There were some fantastic prizes to be won, including a prize for the best blue dish (yes blue!) and a Kitchen Aid for the best dish overall.

With an unmistakable passion for food in common, it's fair to say that there was a lot of food at the event. There were scrumptious savouries and a very big spread of seductive sweets. I opted for a sweet option for my dish to bring along on the day, and I created this food bloggers picnic cake for the occasion.

 

It was a chocolate mud cake with three layers of chocolate ganache and salted caramel, decorated with fondant. It seemed only appropriate that the top of the cake be a picnic seen fit for food bloggers, complete with a laptop, digital SLR camera (I <3 my Canon :P) and an array of treats including... cake, macarons, grapes, sandwiches, watermelon and a hamburger. The cake was very well received by my new food blogging friends, and I was also awarded Best Sweet Dish of the day for my cake, winning me a beautiful dinner for two at Alio Restaurant! Hurray! :)

We ate, we talked about food and blogging, we ate, we laughed... and then we ate some more! Rather than boring you all to death with a written round up, let me simply tell the story with pictures... Believe it or not - this is only a small selection of the food on the day!

There's plenty more to come from the picnic, so keep reading :)

Impressed?! I certainly was... What can I say? Sydney food bloggers rock!!!

And after all that food, you do need to work it off. So a few of us had a go and killing the poor pinata, and succeeded.

Last but not least... the overall winning dish of the day - Anita's popular fish cakes. Her prize, a brand new Kitchen Aid. She was over the moon to win :)

Thank you to the organisers and the wonderful food bloggers in attendance on Saturday. It was such a nice day, and it was fantastic putting a face to all of your blogs. I feel so fortunate and proud to be part of such a friendly, creative and supportive online community. Keep in touch, and I hope it won't be long till I see you all again soon :)


Love,

Ladybird x