Eat Drink Blog 2012: My Top 5 Highlights

Last week was the wonderful Eat Drink Blog 2012 Conference in Adelaide organised by a fabulous South Australia based group of bloggers. The bringing together of like minds for a weekend has certainly been one of  the highlights of my blogging career, as it reinspired and energised me to lift my blogging game. Of course, I could walk through the days one by one, but since we'd all be asleep by the time the plane touched down in Adelaide, I thought I'd pick the top 5 learnings to share.

1. Sydney pulled the market short straw
I don't quite know how I've made it to Adelaide on a few occasions but never been to the Adelaide Central Market. It's a bit like Central Station in Sydney, that is, not quite in the centre, but now that I know about it, it will be the centre of my next visits to Adelaide. What happened to Sydney in all of this? We ended up with Paddy's Market, selling cheap souvenirs, while Adelaide has this great hub filled with hundreds of vendors collected under the same roof selling their speciality products at what seemed like reasonable prices, creating a real community feel whilst supporting the farmers and growers.

2. Don't gush
Diane Jacobs, an expert in food writing who has written the food writers/bloggers bible, Will Write for Food, (which I can't wait to get my hands on) was the keynote speaker. As well as many other nuggets, her key advice was: don't gush... It's boring. I guess I knew that already, but do have a tendency to rave about things I love, and it would be very easy for me to gush about the Eat Drink Blog Conference, but I'll keep that in check. When I receive the book I have on order right now, I'll be putting my new found food writing knowledge to the test!

3. Write the recipe ingredients in the order they'll be used
One of the themes running through a variety of presentations was that keeping it simple for readers is the key. Readers and, more importantly, our recipe triers, don't want things to be too complicated, or they'll just go elsewhere. I hadn't really actually thought that people would really be trying my recipes, but in case they are, I'd better make them clear. One of the simplest ways to do that is to list out the recipe ingredients in the order they appear in the recipe. I can put that one into practice straight away!



4. Email subscribers are like gold

Email subscribers are the loyal friends who have requested blog posts straight to their inbox. Instead of having to go seeking through the facebook feed, competing with their friends wedding pics, the next fun event, they have opted to be sent the posts each week to distract them from work, and therefore I might actually get a look in! I had never thought about it like that till Jules from the Stone Soup's presentation. By thinking about what I am wanting my readers to do when they get to my blog, I can hopefully make it a little simpler for readers to engage when they arrive!

5. There really is too much of a good thing

Who says you can't get enough of a good thing? I love food and tasting everything I can! The Eat Drink Blog Conference 2012, however, actually pushed me to the limit! There were so many tasty offerings provided for us to feast upon by the generous sponsors: Breakfast from Red Door Bakery, Lunch from the market producers who came in on their day off to feed us at Adelaide Central Market, Coffee from Breville, A Mexican feast from the Hilton, Chocolate fountains from Providore, cheese from Barossa Cheese Company, cakes from the Cupcake Table to mention a few that I can remember! I think it's clear that I'll not make the grade as a competitive eater, but I had a great time trying!

Thanks again to Lambs Ears and Honey; The Hungry Australian; Eating Adelaide; Travelling in MaryJanes; She Cooks, She Gardens; The Natural Foodie; Playing House for organising a memorable, insightful but also fun weekend! And the South Australian Tourist Board for showcasing their beautiful state!

Sarap in Parap

I was looking at my photos from last year's Darwin trip and was inspired again! The markets in Darwin were one of the highlights of a trip to NT, and we weren't even there for the famous Thursday/Sunday night Mindl beach markets. We headed to the Saturday morning Parap market on recommendation of Marion from Masterchef's and our great foodie's friends, to find the Green Papaya salad and Laksa. The markets are an ecclectic mix of Australian, indigenous Australian and Asian, all surrounding one block of a suburb on the outskirts of Darwin.

We had been advised to look for the woman with the big wooden pestle and mortar bashing the green papaya salad together. I guess we found her, and if we didn't (there seemed to be several large pestle and mortars on various stalls) it was certainly a salad worth the hunt. I regret not picking up one of the green papaya shavers (an implement I'm sure I could substitute with one of my mandolin slicer attachments, but it's just not the same!) as the salad was so expertly and quickly thrown together, with the shards of fruit, bashed up chilli, fish sauce and peanuts (I'm sure there's other secret ingredients). When I placed the order, I was asked how many chillis. I think we got two in our "medium" salad - I didn't want to be too blown away! It's a shame I wasn't in Darwin long enough to figure out how many I do - chillis that is - I think I could have gone hotter, but good to start off safe.

The market was bustling and surprisingly, despite the heat, the queue for the laksa was a few people deep. Not only was this the busiest, so the people were crammed in waiting for their turn to order and pick up their pots of spicy soup, but it was situated right in the heart of the market with the heat from the stalls and the day making us a little hot and bothered.

When ours finally arrived we escaped to a cool table under a tree to cool down, but the sweat didn't stop pouring off the brow with the heat of the laksa broth and the kick of the papaya salad. This, however, was sweat of contentment!

PS. Sarap means Delicious in Tagalog (the language my family in the Philippines speaks) I couldn't help thinking "how appropriate" the whole time I was in Parap markets!

Oodles of Noodles

Noodles at the Night Noodle Market

The Night Noodle market is one of the more accessible events of the Sydney Crave Food Festival. We went along one October Friday night for a bite to eat at one of the plethora of stalls set up in Hyde Park.

When I called this post Oodles of Noodles, I think it should have been Oodles of people. It's a pretty popular event and lots of queues across the park for the stalls that brought noodles and typical accompaniments from a wide range of countries.

There were noodles, dumplings and rice dishes from China, Japanese pancakes and noodles, as well as Malay satay, Indian and Thai curries. A melting pot of culture and cuisines!

Oodles of People

I am lucky that being a Citibank cardholder (this is not a sponsored post by the way) there was a special VIP seating area that we could use. It really made all the difference so once we'd picked up our ironically non-noodle dishes - dim sums, Peking duck pancakes and pork ribs with rice - we had a seat and table awaiting so we could tuck into our wares!

The food was typical street food and I am not really a huge fan of plastic plates and cutlery but was a fun evening out to get into the spirit of the Food festival.

These little piggies went to Market!

I was lucky enough to have read It Happened In Florence, while I was in the early planning (read thinking) of a trip to Italy! It totally sold me that Italy was a must-see destination and booked my trip straight away. Despite being a self confessed non-foodie as far as preparation and even eating goes, Nita loves everything about the accompaniment to good food - being a fabulous hostess, the company, the fun and the buzz of shopping at the market. 



"Buying food at the market always led to a barrage of questions,
How many people are you serving? When are you eating this? What are you serving to accompany it? What wine are you drinking with it? How are you cooking it? 


Purchasing a piece of meat from the butcher is kindred to adopting a pet from the Humane Society; until he is assured that you will be taking proper care of the purchase, he isn’t going to let you have it. And with fruit, buying a melon for example, the first question would be,
When are you eating it - today, tomorrow?
And depending on my answer, the vendor would make a selection and hand me over a fruit of the appropriate ripeness. If my answer gave a date three days out or more, she’d look at me like I was joking,
Why would you come to the market today? Come back when you actually need it.


In addition to getting the meat, fruit and vegetables that exactly met my needs, my responses to other interrogations would ensure that I got the right kind of pesto to have with the bruschetta I was serving, and not the one more suited to eat with pasta; the correct amount of sauce to accompany the fresh linguine I’d chosen; and the best advice on the way to prepare, cook and serve all the things I’d purchased on any given day."

With this experience in mind we were excited to visit the markets in Italy for ourselves. They looked like a work of art! So many fresh vegetables: zucchini flowers, mini pumpkin, mushrooms, chillis, trays and trays of tomatoes adorned the vegetable stands; the aroma of herbs - dried and fresh - filled the air; cured meats and prosciutto stalls were piled with ready to slice hams and salamis; and fresh pasta was artistically curled up in the enclosed stalls. The fish markets had all types of sea creatures - some we had never seen before! We wished we had access to a kitchen so we could take home a bag of fresh groceries to cook, but alas, we had to make do with the fabulous Italian restaurants and wish that one day we will find markets like these in Sydney!


Reprinted by kind permission of the authors Nita Tucker and Christa McDermott