Sydney Food Bloggers Christmas Party 2015
Three hundred and seventy food blogs in Sydney. That's how many invites Suze and I sent out for the 7th annual Sydney Food Bloggers Christmas Party. It's a community event we first started in 2009, providing an opportunity for food bloggers to meet, mingle and eat. Back in those early years, food blogging was a wild and new frontier. Today everyone - and their mothers - are snapping food photos and posting them on Instagram.
It's surreal to think that food blogging has almost become a long hand form of food sharing, versus the scroll and double-tap addictiveness of Instagram. Sure Instagram has lots of pretty pictures but there's a real artform to food blogging that I still appreciate and relish, from the burst of that opening para to the build-up of written details that follow, right down to the individual nuances of website design.
The Christmas party has always been about helping to build the food blogging community, because nowhere will you find so many other like-minded people armed with cameras, keen eyes and a second stomach.
Neon lights, disco balls and hanging egg chairs at Studio Neon
After enduring thunderstorms and heatwaves in previous years, we decided to leave Mother Nature out of it and booked Studio Neon, a converted warehouse in Waterloo. Hanging egg chairs, neon lights, eclectic furniture and disco balls offered a quirky backdrop for our party. Aaron Teece of Studio Neon provided the venue at a discounted rate for our community event, and we charged everyone a small fee to cover the room hire.
Frames, flamingoes and furniture
I took these venue pics during our site inspection beforehand. On the day of the party, it didn't long for the space to be swarming with food and food bloggers.
Smash cake!
Claudia from @smash_cakes_3108 offered a smash cake for the party to help us celebrate.
The official cake smashing ceremony - yes chocolate went flying everywhere
We used it to launch proceedings on the day. ChocolateSuze smashed it good.
Delicious debris
The two-kilo monster yielded a gluttony of lollies beneath the chocolate shell.
The spread
As always, everyone brought a plate of food to share.
But first, lemme take a photo
You know what came first though. Photos. Myself included. Here's a quick round-up of some of the homemade goodness...
Smoked salmon blinis - Perfect party food.
Chicken and tofu ricey rolls by Food is Our Religion - branded packaging en pointe! I ate two.
Baked ricotta with preserved lemon salsa by alanabread - so tasty. The recipe was by Mike McEnearney of Kitchen by Mike.
Lemper by Irene's Getting Fat! (seriously, she's not) These homemade lemper are seriously so good. Fragrant sticky rice and a spiced coconut chicken filling.
Miso beef bao sliders with aioli and rocket by Mrs and Mrs Chopsticks - homemade bao! So soft. And the miso beef was incredibly tender.
Food time!
Miso butterscotch macarons by Ramen Raff - Raff's macs are always the first to disappear. Pretty sure these went in about 8 seconds.
Green tea madeleines by Eat Your Teacup - I nabbed one of these. So fluffy!
Summer berry tiramisu by Newlyfeds - So darned cute.
Ginger and honeycomb burger cookies by Oh Burger Me! - Such a brilliant job of these homemade beauties.
Giant fairy bread cake! - Best idea ever. My iPhone for scale.
So. Much. Food.
Class of #sydfbxmas2015
Thanks everyone for coming! We had 66 food bloggers attend this year. It was awesome to meet so many new faces, as well as see so many familiar ones too!
Want more pics? Search for the #sydfbxmas2015 hashtag on Instagram. And check out the food blogs below.
Sydney Food Bloggers Christmas Party 2015 attendees:
A Little Bit of Tang | Adobo Down Under | Alana Bread | Angie Lives To Eat (and Cook) | Brunch Bandits | Burn My Mouth | Chew Your Chow | ChocolateSuze | Citrus and Candy | Cook Suck | Droolworthy World | Eat Your Tea Cup | Eating With your Eyes | Fight the Craving | Fill My Tummy | Food Is All | Food is Our Religion | From Across the Kitchen Table | Grab Your Fork | iFat Food Chronicles | I’m Still Hungry | Irene’s Getting Fat | It’s Cake Time | Judy’s Blog | Khismosa | Kningja Eats | Maddie Loves Food | Memoirs of a Foodie | Milkteaxx | Mr and Mrs Chopsticks | Ms Jay Emm | My Kitchen Stories | Nessy Eater | Newlyfeds | Oh Burger Me | Penguin Says Feed Me | Polyphagia | Ramen Raff | Sarah vs Carbs | Simon Food Favourites | Small But Hungry | Spoon, Fork and Chopsticks | The Chronicles of Hilda | The Economic Foodie | The Food Diary | The Hungry Plum | The Perks of Being a Food Blogger | The Walking Advertisement | Two Happy Bellies | Wait, the Camera Eats First | What Em Did | When the World Stops Spinning | Where’s My Sauce
Related Grab Your Fork posts:
Sydney Food Bloggers Christmas Party 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009
posted by Helen (Grab Your Fork) on 11/26/2015 02:24:00 am
14 Comments:
At 11/26/2015 9:16 am, Unknown said…
Every dish so lovingly prepared and packaged! Any leftovers?
At 11/26/2015 10:51 am, chocolatesuze said…
So. Much. Food. Hahaha good times!
At 11/26/2015 10:53 am, Berny @ I Only Eat Desserts said…
I love how much effort the bloggers put in the food - what a feast. It sounds like such a fun event :)
At 11/26/2015 10:58 am, Brian Tam Food said…
Wish I could have made it this year to meet everyone - looked like such a fun afternoon! Next year :)
At 11/26/2015 4:17 pm, Hotly Spiced said…
It looks like the party went really well and that smash cake is incredible! Susie certainly did a great job of getting to the lollies. Those ginger cookies that look like burgers are so cute! Love the brilliant array of food xx
At 11/27/2015 12:24 am, Darryn (Newlyfeds) said…
A wonderful party. Thanks to you and Suse for organising and running everything so smoothly. The Bad Santa was hilarious, and there was so much tasty and beautiful food. I'm glad you posted the source of the baked ricotta recipe - I need to eat it again ��
At 11/27/2015 12:45 pm, gaby @ lateraleating said…
Sad I missed it, will try next year :)
At 11/27/2015 4:04 pm, Amanda @lambsearsandhoney said…
Congratulations to you and Chocolatesuze - these events don't happen without quite a bit of work and the Sydney food blogging community is lucky to have you to do it.
It certainly looks like it was a great day. And such wonderful food!
At 11/28/2015 12:56 pm, Martine @ Chompchomp said…
Oh I love the spirit and enthusiasm that this annual event exudes! I wish we had started something similar in Perth, we tried it last year but barely anyone showed up sadly :(
At 11/28/2015 9:07 pm, Napoli Restaurant Alert said…
Great post! What an impressive spread! Next level packaging by Food is Our Religion.
At 11/29/2015 8:48 am, Ramen Raff said…
Thanks for organising again Helen and Suze! The party is fab as always!
At 11/30/2015 7:54 pm, Maureen | Orgasmic Chef said…
What a great event, Helen! I wish we had something similar up here in no-man's land. :)
All the food is beautiful and all those smiling faces fill me with a bit of envy.
At 11/30/2015 10:27 pm, Dee @ The Casual Food Blogger said…
OMG the macarons and burger cookies :O Can you tell I have a sweet tooth?
ON another note, I'm super sad I missed it. I still have not been to one. The difficulties of trying to balance work/life/uni/blogging!
At 12/09/2015 9:19 pm, irene said…
Glad you enjoyed the lemper Helen! Thanks for organizing and this is such a great coverage!
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