I’ve often said things happen very serendipitously for me, especially as far as this blog is concerned. One afternoon I was strolling through Woollahra and I decided to pop into the Donna Hay General Store. I enquired about Halloween decorations (as I tend to do) and the salesperson said that she’d go downstairs and ask Donna. My head did a swivel. Was Donna Hay in the actual store? It turns out she was! She came upstairs with Petrina her business manager and when I mentioned needing the Halloween decorations for my blog they said “Oh you’re Not Quite Nigella?”. You could have knocked me over with a feather. They knew who I was? “We were just talking about you!” they said. It turns out that they actually read my blog!

Donna was dressed casually and she is small in height-I always assumed that she was quite tall from her appearance on Masterchef. They even mentioned taking down the prices of the macarons and making them bigger after reading my comments on it and how for the next 5 days after reading that they asked the customers in the store about how much they’d pay for a macaron! We also discuss her brush with Nigella Lawson – literally, as Nigella rushed past Donna while exiting a London Department Store and getting into a waiting car (she has good manners and apologised for bumping into Donna) and it is with reluctance that I leave as it felt like we could have chatted for a long time.

Rum & Craisin Ice Cream Puddings using a Donna Hay recipe

I had to dash so I chalked that up to one of those funny coincidences and wonderful moments that happen in the food blogging world. Fast foward a few days later and Donna had happily agreed to an interview! So without further ado, here is a Q & A with Donna Hay!

How did you make the transition from a food stylist to food editor at Marie Claire to a cookbook author? Was it hard? What obstacles did you face?

Click here to read the full story

Betty and I doing our best C.S.I. imitations. Photo by Kath from A Cupcake or Two.

Picture this: six bloggers with their friends and or partners huddled around a dish. Some sniff, some look at it from all different angles, some close their eyes and inhale deeply. Then a portion is taken to the table where using a fork each piece is savoured, pulled apart and each minuscule, ground up piece turned over and examined as if under a human microscope. Welcome to a Forensic Eating Dinner party, C.S.I. food blogger style.

Ellie’s dish

This night we’re gathered at Trissa and Dan’s house and in attendance are Betty, Ellie, Kath, Trisha and Richard as well as their friends and partners. I first heard of the term “Forensic Eating” from my friend Liss from Frills in the Hills who mentioned it in a comment on my blog. I then floated the idea of having a Forensic Eating dinner party while we were brainstorming a theme for a dinner party one night at Guylian Cafe and everyone seemed eager to give this a try. Fast forward a few weeks later and we’ve all brought a dish to taste. A sheet of paper and a pen is handed out to everyone. The rules are simple: forensically determine what is in these dishes using sight, taste and smell. The creator of each dish tells everyone how many ingredients there are in the dish and everyone sets about compiling a list of the ingredients.

You are only allowed to name as many ingredients as the creator says there are in the dish and points are awarded for correct answers (none are deducted for wrong answers). First up is Ellie’s dip served with French bread. “The dip has 7 ingredients and no salt and pepper” she says and we get to work. I’ve teamed up with Mr NQN who loves the idea of a challenge. There is a strong taste of garlic and it reminds me of a tapenade and there’s a salty fishyness which screams anchovy. “There’s something else in there to give it body” Mr NQN says “like bread and there’s also water”. I can see parsley and tomato and what I think is olive but he is less convinced about the olive. We come up with a list of 7 ingredients based on both of our guesses.

Kath’s dish

Next out comes Kath’s dish, or more specifically Mama Eugenio’s (her mum’s) noodles. “This dish has 11 ingredients” Kath says counting them mentally. There are some obvious ones like carrot and obviously noodles (points are deducted if you couldn’t figure that one out), Lup Cheong or chinese sausage, sugar snap peas, wombok and chicken as there are clear pieces of each. However we have trouble coming up with 10 ingredients.

Trissa’s dish

Click here to read the full story

Foodus Bloggerus in action

I recently did a story about 10 Things You Should Know About Food Bloggers. I didn’t realise how popular it would be, after all it was just my rambling musings on the topic but what I did find out was exactly how alike we are as a breed and how fantastically comforting that was. The comments and astute observations of other food bloggers made made me chuckle too and gave rise to a second post on the topic, 12 MORE Things You Should Know About Food Bloggers.  So without further ado, here are another 12 things you should know about our particular, peculiar kind.

1. If you dine out with a Foodus Bloggerus, you’ll learn the art of dissecting food. An answer such as “It’s ok” is no longer sufficient. If you can create some oral poetry and describe the flavour or better still if you can pick the ingredients in it so that we can replicate it at home, you are a food blogger’s friend for life.

2. Is everyone at dinner thinking of ordering the same thing? Can you hear the voice in our head screaming “Dear God NO!” (or perhaps we even say it out loud). We love ordering different things as means that there’s more coverage of the dishes at the restaurant and it makes for a better story. In many cases when people ask me “What are you going to order?” my first response is “Depends on what you order” .

Oh yes there’s the Eiffel Tower around here somewhere..but look at the queue for ice cream!

3. If you’ve ever seen a food blogger’s holiday snaps you’ll notice that 90% of the photos will be of the food and restaurants that we’ve visited. Sure there may be 1 or 2 of the Eiffel Tower thrown in but it may just be because there happens to be the Jules Verne restaurant there. And ok we may also include the non food ones because we know that you’ll laugh at us if it’s full of food photos.

4. Sharing is caring and we love to share. Have you ever cut up a chocolate into quarters? We have. After all everyone has to have a taste right? Even if you don’t want to, just try it and let’s talk about it some more

5. Colleagues of food bloggers are the biggest benefactors of our habit.  In order to try and maintain a reasonable weight, it’s much easier to foist our creations on you. Send us your Weight Watchers bill.

6. How do Food bloggers kill time? Scouring obscure ethnic grocery stores and high end food emporiums for unusual ingredients. Is it exotic? Does it derive from the petals of a plant that only opens 3 days in a year? Check! Into the basket it goes.

7. Spouses of food bloggers are generally patient people, ones whose credit cards may have run slightly dry at the purchase of gold leaf and saffron (”Honey I had to buy it. And didn’t they say that gold is a good investment?”). I don’t want to say long suffering though as they do reap the benefits of good food. Some spouses like Mr NQN even get into the process and photograph the food even though he has very little interest in food whilst some remain bemused and embarrassed by the whole thing. Just surrender to us and comply quietly. It will make things a lot easier, trust me…

8. Some food bloggers take notes. Please don’t be offended, just pretend that we’re typing into a Blackberry and hopefully that may seem more normal.

9. The bedside table of a food blogger is simply a cookbook book shelf with little post it flags stuck to each second page marking recipes we intend to cook – one day. It’s a socially acceptable form of pornography – food pornography.

Autograph from Marcus Wareing

10. We question because we care. A non caring/unknowledgeable waiter is our worst nightmare and we are their nightmare customer. If we’ve enjoyed a dish we want to know more about it. so we can a) blog about it and b) perhaps recreate it at home. If a waiter has been trained to know everything there is about a dish, their face brightens when we ask them as they finally get a chance to show off what they’ve been asked to learn. And it may lead to a kitchen tour which is pretty much like going backstage at a rock concert. And that’s why we collect autographed menus from chefs.

Danish Horn of Plenty

11.Got a birthday/christening/anniversary/wedding coming up? Chances are the foodus bloggerus will probably help out. After all when else are we going to have the opportunity to make a Croquembouche or a Danish Horn Of Plenty? I brought this Horn of Plenty to a friend’s party once and it was such a hit I vowed to turn up to every party with a Horn of Plenty.

12. We carry a spare battery and if it’s a once in a lifetime moment, we carry a spare lens and/or camera. I also carry a fork with me and a knife is in the car. I have a response already prepared for the police officer that stops me and is alarmed to see I have a knife in the glove compartment. “I’m sorry officer but you see I’m a Food Blogger”.