Food Bloggers Connect - First UK Food Bloggers' Conference

We’ve shared recipes, great meals eaten and glimpsed into each other’s lives through our food blogs, we’ve shared photos and revealed personalities on Facebook, we’ve given cooking tips and encouragement on Twitter. Now isn’t it about time that we met?

In this day and age of the internet, we have lost our connectedness. Friendships are made and lost, love affairs carried on across oceans, bonds created though on different continents, fans found and clubs joined, yet how much of this is 140 spaces maximum or quick status updates? Disconnected and discombobulated, we can only carry on so far in the blogosphere.

So let's meet! Some of us have already met but there are still many of us who haven't. Everyone and anyone is invited from long-time bloggers, newbies or even people thinking of starting their own food blog. Food Blogger Connect 2009 is the time to connect: get to know your fellow food bloggers and meet new ones, share tips and ideas, network and organize projects. And have a blast doing it!

Food blogging no longer need be a lonely, individual sport. Forget those days when you feel like it’s going no where, when you wonder if you really belong to that great, funny, passionate family of bloggers out there. Come and connect, be inspired, partake of our favorite food group!

Food Blogger Connect 2009 is the first meet up of its kind (the first official conference being held in the U.K) and is being held in London on November 28, 2009 at Levant from 1 p.m to 5 p.m, serving delicious Lebanese cuisine. Don’t miss it! After all, Food Bloggers share!

Please note:  On October 28th, we will call for your ideas, and we look forward to hearing from you about the topics you'd like covered and who you would love to see cover them. Food Blogger Connect is the first Food Blogging conference to take place in the U.K and we need you to take the lead. We are also looking for people to help spread the word. So, if you are interested in posting about this event on your blog, then please email foodbloggerconnect@gmail.com and we will be happy to send you a flyer with all the pertinent details. You can RSVP @ www.rsvpit.com. The event number is 2009.

 Here's a quick recap:

WHAT: Food Blogger Connect
WHEN: November 28th, 2009,  1 PM to 5 PM
WHERE: Levant Restaurant, London, W1
WHO:Everyone who is or wants to be part of the Food Blogosphere. Food Blogger connect is open to all, and you don't have to be a long-time blogger to attend. This event is open to Non-UK Food Bloggers as well. 
HOW MUCH: £30 for food and 1 glass of wine. This is the only fee and it covers the meal.
WHERE CAN I RSVP: Go to www.rsvpit.com. The event code is 2009.  

We can’t wait to meet you in person!

Dirty Kitchen Secrets, Mowielicious, Life’s A Feast &  Saffron & Blueberry.

XOXO

The Autumn Solstice, A visit to the Zoo and some Verrines

Today is the autumn solstice, which means a couple of things for me:
1) Since my precious little Baby Saffron was born on the 21st of March and thus the spring solstice, she turned 6 months old today. Where does the time go?
2) I really have to put up some of the "summer" posts I still have in my drafts since they're not really relevant anymore. It's time to start making heavier fare to pat the tummy and the spirit against the cooler weather.
So, you get to see our visit to the zoo (though you wouldn't have known it was summer with the weather we had at the zoo that day) and these mango and passion fruit verrines which come from the leftover ingredients of the mango macarons.

To be perfectly honest, I hate the zoo. I just hate to see these poor animals in captivity. But we didn't go to the zoo for our own pleasure since A. hates the zoo even more than I do, we went because Baby Saffron is simply enthralled with animals right now and does the funniest acrobatics just to try and reach the dogs with her fingertips, so we thought she'd enjoy seeing all these other strange and wonderful-looking animals.
Unfortunately, the day was gray and drab, and while she loves seeing the dogs at close quarters, most of the animals were too far away in their pens to generate much more than mild interest on her part. Plus, there were so many people it was often difficult to get in a position where she could see something in the throng, which prompts me to say that the most obnoxious animals at the zoo were clearly the humans. She was fascinated by the hyenas, but I'm pretty sure that was because they looked like dogs to her.

We spent some time looking at the flamingos and I caught one of them in a ballerina stretch above, so effortlessly graceful. The ocelots were staring at the passage from their lair to their outer pen and we figured it was probably close to meal time. While it is necessary I suppose, particularly given some peoples' foolishness, I did hate taking pictures of the ocelots and the tigers through thick sheets of glass. 
The verrines are composed of a layer of the filling I made for the macarons, a layer of honey mango puree, a layer of whipped cream, and a topping of fresh passion fruit. They were actually even more refreshing than I expected them to be.

While I do hate the zoo, I have to admit that generally speaking, most of the enclosures were much better and larger than at any other zoo I've seen. I still think it's a shame to "cage" the animals in this way and put them in environments that are nothing like their natural ones -I mean, it's London, so all those poor animals that are used to tropical weather must be freezing, I know I am- but as my sister pointed out, in some cases it may be better to be in a pen than staring down the end of a poacher's gun barrel. And it enables us and other parents like us to take their wee ones to see some beautiful animals without taking them on a trek across the globe.

For more filling (which I made up as I was going along so feel free to try your own version) than you can possibly put in mango macarons and thus end up making Mango-Passion Fruit verrines:

- 1/2 Honey Mango
- 2 egg whites
- 50g granulated sugar
- ~50g double cream
- ~100g fromage frais
- ~40g fresh passion fruit
- Puree the honey mango but you do not need all of it for the filling as it is very watery.
- Put the egg whites with the sugar in a bowl over simmering water (double-boiler) and heat to 100C whipping constantly. Take off the heat and continue whipping until cool (I use my stand mixer bowl for this). You should have a stiff glossy meringue (Swiss).
 - In a separate bowl, whip the cream to soft peaks. Add the fromage frais and whip until smooth. Fold in the Swiss meringue. Fold in the passion fruit (save the seeds with a little juice for the top layer of the verrine) and some of the mango puree so that the mixture is not too thin and will stiffen in the fridge.
- Then you simply put some of that mixture on the bottom of your glass.
- Top with a layer of the leftover mango puree.
- Top with a layer of whipped cream (preferably freshly whipped cream and not stuff from the can so that you can sweeten it as you wish and not as the manufacturer wishes).
- Top that with the reserved passion fruit seeds and juice. Cover and refrigerate so that it is cool and refreshing when you wish to enjoy it.

Richmond Park

I know I've mentioned that I love Richmond Park at least twice on this blog, once in the last post. So what's so special about Richmond Park you say? Well, I'll show you...

This is Richmond. Not the park, the borough. Just giving you an idea of how lovely it is and you're not even in the park yet. Oh and yes that's the Thames River.

This is a typical view in the park. And it's a sunny day, so there are lots of people there. Yep, that's lots of people.
See something in the grass in the distance, close to the trees? No? It's too far, right? Let me take you closer.

Yep, your eyes do not deceive you. Deer. Dozens of deer. Hundreds of deer. OK not hundreds of deer in this picture or even in this area, but throughout the park. This is why I love Richmond Park. How come all the (apparently unmolested) deer you ask? Let me 'splain.

Richmond Park belongs to the Queen. You've heard of her, right? Little, white-haired, 80s, answers to the name of Elizabeth, though there was another Elizabeth before her so she's the second Elizabeth. But why am I showing you a bunch of deer butts in this picture you say, interrupting me? Because I love the little bird perched on the middle deer. It's like those little fish that attach themselves to shark to clean them of parasites. Well, that's what it makes me think of.

Anyway, it's the largest royal park in London and because it's a royal park, the deer belong to her. So you better not be gettin' up in her little crown about wantin' to shoot yourselves some deer now 'cause it's illegal. Just try to adopt a zen attitude, like these two gals...

You know...relax, have a snack or beverage of your choice, like this young couple. Right? That looks like a young stag to me because he's only got 6 points and it looks like he's got 4 more coming out. Anyone more versed in the growth patterns of deer want to enlighten me?

I don't know how you react when you see this, but I want to cry out "Bambi! I'm sorry about your Mama!" although technically, anything louder than a whisper sends them bounding off so maybe not.

And now it's getting to the golden hour and--there's one of those birds again! And he's perched on the young stag! Had to take a picture.

The most amazing thing is how used they are to people being around (as long as they don't get too close). I mean, seriously, when have you ever seen a Golden Retriever that close to a herd of deer? She wants to go home, he looks back wistfully at what could have been...

Ah Richmond, I heart thee. If we'd been allowed to live with you while we were sequestered in this country, we totally would have. I'll miss you, but there are beautiful places where we're going too.