Thanks to Corina from Searching for Spice for assembling the monthly round up. Read it for yourself here. This month is the 20th edition of Our Growing Edge! Jules from The Kiwi Diaries is hosting. Jules is a graphic designer living in Auckland but is from Argentina and is currently galavanting around the globe. I can’t wait to see what interesting food she encounters this month.
When we were young, we would buy all the girly teen magazines and take personality quizzes with more seriousness than end of year exams. I’m not sure the psychology behind taking online quizzes (as an adult) but it’s a little bit of fun.
To celebrate 4 years of Bunny Eats Design, I’d like to share a few wonderful things that I’ve gushed about, salivated over and adored. You might have noticed I have a little love affair with duck. Be it duck fat, duck liver or duck legs. If you followed my 31 reviews in 31 days last month, you may have noticed I ordered duck quite a few times last month. Yes, duck and I are old friends (well, the ducks might not think so). With special thanks to Saveur Duck, we are giving away a whole duck to each of 3 prize winners. Now 3 of you can join me on my duck feasting! Due to the logistics of this prize, this competition is only open to Auckland, Hamilton and Wellington residents. To enter, simply fill in the form below.
I can hardly believe it has been 4 years since I started this blog. One day I started and just forgot to stop. I’m a little horrified that I’ve published over 1000 posts over 4 years. With around 250 views a day and over 1000 subscribers, I feel incredibly blessed to have an audience. It’s amazing how anyone can start something and put in the passion and man-hours and suddenly you are “a blogger”. I’ve enjoyed using this blog as an excuse for adventure. I’ve eaten some amazing things (fish laap in Laos, mantis prawn in Borneo) and some gross things (bile in Vietnam). I’ve also enjoyed eating crickets, alpaca, snake, brains, eyes, and hearts.
Last night, tucked away in a pub in Parnell, ten Auckland bloggers gathered and feasted upon a nine dish tasting menu. Hosted by restaurant review website Zomato and The Paddington, this was an opportunity to show off the venue and a new menu. Zomato Zomato (rhymes with tomoto) launched here mid 2013 and is the newest review website in New Zealand. Zomato are gaining a good market share of reviews with their easy to navigate, clean design. As a graphic designer, I love a sleek website and I’m sure you do too. Their data collecting technique is mind boggling. Their data collectors have included over 3000 Auckland restaurants with more added weekly. I signed up to Zomato earlier this year and use it to get a feel for unfamiliar restaurants. With a tiered points system, reviewers on Zomato gain social status based on their activity. Almost any activity on Zomato will gain points and you can choose to follow reviewers with similar tastes. For those that love sharing and looking at food porn, you upload photos to restaurant listings and …
We have 10 winners! Thanks for all the interesting entries to Bunny Eats Design’s third year anniversary. I enjoyed reading all your answers, especially the food related questions. Entries were sorted by date and drawn via random.org, a nifty, free online tool. And the winners are… 1. Bunny Eats Design Illustrated Card and Stickers Sofia, Anna Katten and Tracy Schalk 2. Giapo Golden Tickets Marnelli and Sue Ryan 3a. The Honesty Box F&V Small Box Gabrielle Johnson 3b. The Honesty Box Corporate Classic Box Meagan Kerr 4. Mood Indigo Movie Comps Ruby Huang 5. Taste of Auckland Tickets Sarah Young and Two Hones Truths Congratulations to you all…and for those who missed out, there’s always next year 🙂 Winners will be contacted via email for delivery instructions.
When Raymund from Ang Sarap invited me to write a guest post for him, first I felt honoured and then a little petrified. What could I possibly write that he hadn’t already covered? Raymund is an accomplished home cook right here in Auckland, New Zealand and has a huge following. His posts are frequent and expert and always with gorgeous photos. He cooks many kinds of Asian dishes and makes challenging ingredients accessible. I wanted to cook something original and inspired by Cantonese cuisine but relevant to what I like to eat. I considered a few things but in the end went with something I’m comfortable cooking with a new twist. Visit Ang Sarap for my write and and recipe for Pork and Apple Wontons with Balsamic Reduction.
It’s coming up to midnight, I’ve had an espresso and ironically, I’m writing this on an empty stomach. I think I would prefer Chinese water torture over missing dinner and then compiling a lengthy food filled post. In the spirit of the Oscars this week, I would like to give a huge thanks to all the foodies who joined the very first edition of Our Growing Edge. This event would be nothing without your passion, skill, hard work and hungry bellies. With 35 submissions to Our Growing Edge this month, there was plenty of variety in the new foodie experiences. This event showed a surprisingly well rounded cross section of what foodies are doing. Blogs from New Zealand, Australia, UK, USA and Canada were well represented. Blogs from Asia or with Asian culinary backgrounds also made an appearance. Success! Before we move onto the highlights… It would be wonderful to have Our Growing Edge hosted on different blogs all around the interwebs. To host a month, all you have to do is write a round …
Dear Food Bloggers and bloggers who also happen to like food, I would like to introduce to you a concept I’ve been nibbling on for some time. We all have bucket lists. Whether they’re written down somewhere or kept in our heads and hearts. Our Growing Edge is the part of us that is still learning and experimenting. It’s the part that you regularly grow and improve, be it from real passion or a conscious effort. This monthly event aims to connect and inspire us to try new things. Who can join? This blogging event is open to anyone. It is not a competition and there are no prizes or winners, it is just a way to share new experiences. You do not have to commit every month, only when you have something to share. The host will do a write up and a round up on the first of the following month on their blog. If you would like to host a month, please email me or comment below. Submissions To enter, you must blog about …
One New Year’s Resolution down. I just bought the URL www.bunnyeatsdesign.com. It’s like getting a real cape made for your superhero costume. Tea towel cape is no longer required. This must be serious now. Hush now all you bloggers out there that have had their own URL for years. p.s. Old links still work. Bonus!
“The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right. If one piece busts, even the smallest piece… the whole universe will get busted.” – Beasts of the Southern Wild Our oven got busted. The smallest piece, the pin for the oven timer snapped off rendering the whole oven useless. Our landlord has been and gone, taking the timer with him so we have a hole where it used to be. Hopefully it is an easy and quick fix. Our stove works fine so I’m not relying on raw or microwave meals. Just no roasting or baking for a while. At least this isn’t a baking blog! Stovetop pavlova and cheesecake anyone?
One of my favourite Auckland bloggers Kara La La La recently posted a list of the search terms that people were using to get to her site. So here I am, copying her because it’s an amusing excercise. Welcome to all you random and wonderful people and I hope that even if you don’t quite find what you were looking for, you find something else that might tickle your fancy. How you got here: beetroot wee evil lobsters mononoke porn what does spaghetti mean for the end of world scallops for breakfast best vietnam porn making a rabbit eat coffee beans how do they make hundreds and thousands sprinkles hungry ketchup font how to draw bangers and mash guacamole bunny rabbit dressed up as a ghost why do new zealanders love pies image woman eating fondue tv sluts WTF guys? Sick picture of a tiger eating a rabbit
Take that!
It’s November the first and what better way to mark this always busy month than to hand my blog over to a special guest blogger. Danielle from Keeping Up With The Holsbys suggested a guest blog swap and it’s nice to have her fill a gap that this blog has. Danielle and I are blogging buddies and she lives just three hours away in Sydney, Australia with her gorgeous family. I’ve loved watching her blog grow and swell with goodness. You can read more of her hilarious and brutally honest brand of writing here. Below is her delicious post on cake and cheese. Pineapple Curd Cake with Homemade Ricotta I used to think a tuffet was your bum. That’s what Little Miss Muffet was sitting on, right? Her butt? Alas, no, a tuffet is a pouffe, but I think that ‘Little Miss Muffet sat on her pouffe’ just doesn’t rhyme, and is a bit weird all-round. In fact, I think the entire nursery rhyme is a bit weird all-round. Little Miss Muffet Sat on her tuffet (big …
I wrote my first ever guest post this week and it’s up now over at Danielle’s blog Keeping Up With The Holsbys. I shared a recipe I make often, in many variations and is pure comfort food to me. A basic pork and shiitake mushroom wonton recipe including steps on deep frying and noodle soup. Check it out here.
It’s been 2 years since I started this blog and in that time I’ve made a number of wonderful friends through this blog both in New Zealand and overseas. There’s nothing like shared interests to cement a friendship and I thank everyone who has commented on this blog in the past 2 years. This blog has given me the excuse to be more adventurous and try new things. I love sharing a little slice of my New Zealand kitchen with the world. Sometime in the coming month, this blog will hit 100,000 visits and I’m celebrating with a new logo and giveaway. Some of you may remember my last giveaways when this blog reached 1,000 hits in October 2010 and then 10,000 hits in April 2011. One lucky winner will receive three of my favourite New Zealand products and three sets of my designs. In true NZ style, the producers all came to the party and have generously donated the following: Al Brown has donated a 1 litre cask of his Extra Virgin Olive Oil from The …
About four years ago, a boy I went to primary (elementary) school with, contacted me online. As a designer, a foodie and a better photographer than I could hope to be, we have a few things in common. We’re a breed of people who have to continuously “make stuff” (and eat stuff). We were classmates over 20 years ago and while we have never met as adults, it’s due to his encouragement that I started this blog. I can’t blame it squarely on this encounter, but it wasn’t until that moment I realised that I too, could have a blog. I’ve always kept diaries or written my thoughts online in forums and lengthy emails (just ask my friends). This blog has helped me focus that energy. Blog about something you are passionate about. Otherwise it’s just work. A blog should inspire, inform or entertain. I sincerely hope that this blog does all three. I love the open dialogue with readers and bloggers all over the world. It’s like meeting kindred spirits when you get to …
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little. – Edmund Burke Live Below The Line is relatively new campaign, not to make you feel guilty about world hunger and poverty, but to raise awareness and funds to charities that have been steadily working hard on these issues for years. Before we can tackle the concept of poverty. We need to understand it. This is a great 2 minute video about the challenge by Auckland designer Kaan Hiini. The challenge: Spend 5 days feeding yourself with $2.25 a day – the New Zealand equivalent of the extreme poverty line. The reason: To give a glimpse into the lives of 1.4 billion people who have no choice but to live below the line every day – and who have to make $2.25NZ ($1.80US) cover a lot more than food. More information can be found on the Live Below The Line website: http://www.livebelowtheline.com/nz
I’m no food stylist but when you take photos for a blog, you can’t help but look at your food differently. Composition, light, props, colour, texture, shape and white space are some of things I consider when shooting my food. I cringe at the photos I took when this blog started in 2010. But they’ll stay up because they’re a reminder of how far I’ve come. Looking at beautifully styled food is inspirational rather than depressing and my favourite food stylist in the world is Dietlind Wolf who is based in Hamburg, Germany. Her work is truly swoon-worthy. I adore her use of organic shapes, groupings and interesting props from all sorts of places for editorial spreads. Please check out more of her gorgeous displays on her blog dietlindwolf.blogspot.com. Bonus: Check out tomorrow’s post on beautiful, organic and nature inspired dinnerware.
It is impossible to imagine that winter is starting back home in Auckland. We are finally acclimatising to the the heat of Thailand but due to fly home to the start of winter very soon. Even though it is warm here, I’m glad that I’ve been pondering my winter to do list for quite some time. These are 10 things that I’ve always wanted to eat, cook or experience. 1. Make Spaghetti alla Puttanesca A dish to get promiscuous with. This quick, fiery dish is reputed to be named after the ladies of the night (ie. Whore Pasta). I tasted it for the first time for breakfast in Thailand (of all places) after a night on the turps. It is made using ingredients from the pantry and is a tasty pasta to serve to any sluts in your life. Perhaps wait until after you have all eaten to tell your friends they have just eaten Whore Pasta. They’ll either think it’s funny or hold a grudge. 2. Cook curry goat I saw Hugh Fearnley-Whittinstall’s curry …
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