Melbourne Food Blogger’s Mad Hatter Spring Picnic Wrap Up
This won’t be the most comprehensive wrap up of the Spring picnic we had yesterday. I’m sure Penny or Thanh will have a more detailed wrap up of the event. I was so overwhelmed trying everything in site I forgot to take photos!
If you haven’t been following, Billy & Karen up in Sydney started this whole idea, and Nuffnang suggested Melbourne join in! So Penny, Thanh and I took care of organising things for Melbourne. Held at the Studley Park Boathouse picnic grounds (which I am now so totally in love with), on the most perfect Spring day.
Thanh and I arrived at 10:30am to secure some space. Neither of us had been before, but were lucky enough to score this little bungalow area with four tables! We quickly set up with drinks and napkins, ready for the onslaught of bloggers!
Penny tried to get as many people as possible to pose with their dish. Clockwise from the top left we have: Emanuela with her gorgeous stuff tomatoes, Christy with lemony friands, Emma with her master piece teapot cake, Kat with her ceviche and gazpacho shot, Allan with his decadent brownies, and a snazzy dressed Billy with his Vietnamese salad.
Let the judging begin! Judges for the day other than myself were; Penny, Thanh, Vanessa from Nuffnang and special guest Linda from Food Designer & Melbourne Macaron and season 1 of Masterchef.
The gorgeous Vee impressed us all by bringing along a roast lamb! She was quite nervous it wasn’t cooked right, but it turned out perfect! She took home best savoury dish of the day.
Winners are grinners! Well done to everyone who won, and thanks to everyone who didn’t score a prize. If only we had more prizes!!
A very big congratulations to Kat who won the KitchenAid with her amazing Son In Law Eggs. It was well worth turning your kitchen into a bombsite! Truly the stand out dish of the day. I’m sure your new KitchenAid will help provide lots of yummy treats for your new baby girl when she arrives into the world in early December! (I can’t believe I forgot to take a photo of the dish that won!!)
Thanks again to our sponsors:
Major Sponsor
Nuffnang (Kitchen Aid & a Blue dish prize)
Melbourne Sponsors
Chef’s Armoury, Pan Asian, Chilli Padi, The French Brasserie, JORG, Make My Day, Harvey Publicity
Thanks to Billy and Karen up in Sydney, hope you both had good birthday in the last few days! Penny for your epic efforts chasing down sponsors, Thanh for doing all you could whilst darting around the world, Linda for coming down and getting in amongst everything.
Most importantly, thank you to every single blogger that came down and brought a dish! It was great to meet you all, even if we couldn’t chat properly, I’m sure we will at the next event!
To see what Sydney got up to check out the following blogs: A Table For Two, Citrus and Candy, Chocolate Suze, and Simon’s comical review at The Heart of Food.
Check out all the Melbourne bloggers (if I missed you, please let me know!):
- Vanessa, Kruppy & Lynda http://www.nuffnang.com.au
- Emanuela http://foodiegoddess.tumblr.com/
- Adrian http://foodrehab.com.au/
- Cherrie http://www.sweetcherriepie.com
- Joe & Nicole http://lotsofcravings.com
- Caryn & Brendan http://peppersaltsugarspice.blogspot.com
- Michelle http://www.michelle-chin.com
- Michele http://ironchefshellie.com
Hannah
Aw, looks like it was so much fun! And Canberra will be hosting the next one, right? 😉
Iron Chef Shellie
Are you nominating yourself to host? 😛
Simon @ the heart of food
Looks like you guys had an awesome time of it down in Melbourne. Certainly less dreary weather than we had up here.
Love how you rock the food blogger clothing! 🙂
Iron Chef Shellie
haha thanks 😛 You too!!
kenny@considerthesauce
Ta hell with Canberra – I nominate New Orleans! Simple, all we need to do is find a sponsor to front up about four dozen return flights. Business class, of course.
Iron Chef Shellie
Oh, I wouldn’t settle for anything LESS than business class 😛 haha (if only I could afford it!)
deb (bearheadsoup)
It was great to meet you and all the other bloggers and try all sorts of delicious food! Thanks so much for all your efforts in organising it, it was a fun day.
Iron Chef Shellie
Great to meet you too! Thanks for your delicious red velvet cupcakes!
penny aka jeroxie
Awesome!! Love all the photos… I didn’t take much so I am glad you too… xoxo!
Iron Chef Shellie
Really? I reckon you took far more photos!! hehe
Michelle
That’s lots of pictures over there. Can I use the Michelles picture for my FB profile? 😀
Iron Chef Shellie
Lol! Of course you can! x
Thanh
Great wrap up Shellie. I don’t think my post about it will come for a quite a bit. And it definitely won’t be half as detailed as yours.
I think we have to give ourselves a small pat on the back, the event went smoothly without any major problems and I think everyone enjoyed it.
Iron Chef Shellie
Thanks Thanh! Looking forward to your post and that awesome photo of Linda!
Allan
yupz still waiting on that photo, that post, and many other posts…nudge nudge LOL =P
Iron Chef Shellie
LOL! *taps foot and fold arms*
Heidi - Apples Under My Bed
Thanks for such a fabulous picnic 🙂 It was lovely to meet everyone and eat all that yummy food!! I’m inspired to get baking – there was so much cupcake goodness.
Heidi xo
Iron Chef Shellie
SO much cupcakey goodness! Shall chat more at the next event! It was a thrill to finally meet you though 🙂
Sarah
Was so great to meet everyone – and so much food! I was in a sugar coma for most of the day!
Iron Chef Shellie
hehe me too! I think I got really snappy at night when I was sugar deprived.. oops!
chocolatesuze
naww you guys had such awesome picnic weather! and mmm that roast lamb looks delish
Iron Chef Shellie
I was so worried it was going to rain! You Sydney people always have nicer weather than us usually anyways 😛
Ashley
Really couldn’t have asked for a better day…or more cupcakes! 🙂 Thanks for helping to organize, was great meeting you and everyone else!
Iron Chef Shellie
So true! Great to meet you! Thanks for hanging around for a chat 🙂
delicieux
Looks like a fantastic day!!!! I love Emma’s pink teapot cake and Kat’s tea party themed hat!
Iron Chef Shellie
Sure was! Those two did an amazing job!
Anthea
It looked like a wonderful afternoon! Well done to the organisers – gutted I had to work but I will hopefully meet you all at the next event 🙂
Iron Chef Shellie
We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day! Hope to see you at the next event too!
MEAN EIRENE
“Never trust a skinny foodie…”
hahaha!
Looks like you guys had fun!
Iron Chef Shellie
hehe, sure did! 🙂 We should have a twitter meet up one day!
Conor @ HoldtheBeef
Well done to all involved!
Iron Chef Shellie
Indeedy!
My Restaurants Melbourne
That was a great write up shellie! so many photos, they look good
Iron Chef Shellie
Thanks babe! Thanks for coming along!
Emma @CakeMistress
Thank you so much for organising the picnic everyone. It was so lovely to put faces to blogs. Can’t wait for the next meet-up.
Iron Chef Shellie
Thank you for coming Emma! Was great for you to stay back and have a chin wag 🙂
Anna Johnston
Wow.., so good to see everyone having such a fun day together. Great turn out.
Iron Chef Shellie
It was a very impressive turn out 🙂 Always great to meet people you only know through the internet!
make my day
Wow… the food! did you get through it all…and how do you all stay so trim! it’s great to see the faces that go with the wonderful food stories. Hopefully next time I’ll be able to pop down and say hello! cheers kari
Iron Chef Shellie
Would love to see you at the next get together! Thanks for sponsoring 🙂
Angela
i just found your awesome blog and thought i’d say hello! i’ve only been to Melbourne once (i live in Syd) but had such a great time! looking forward to reading more 🙂
Iron Chef Shellie
Hello there! Glad you enjoyed the Sydney picnic 🙂
Karen | C&C
Ok, I finally got around to catching up on blogs…
Lol, today was so cold and windy and I was so frigging glad that we didn’t have our picnic today! Anyway, awesome stuff guys! Loving the food and the turn out. So happy that we pulled this all off and it was such a great day in both cities 😀
Cheers to you all for all your work! x