Second Helpings – June 2009
Jun 30th, 2009 by admin
I suppose I had better start with the Guild of Food Writers 2009 Awards party, which I attended last Thursday as a shortlistee for the New Media category. I didn’t win, but I did get the opportunity to meet some fantastic people, including my two ‘rivals’ for the New Media award, Tim Hayward from the Guardian Word of Mouth (who beat us!) and Elisabeth Winkler from Real Food Lover. You can read all about the awards here, and I was mentioned on Word of Mouth the following day. It was nice to be reminded of the judges’ comment about World Foodie Guide (which I completely forgot from nerves!) – ‘great fun to read and hard to leave‘. Thank you to all my readers and friends who have been so supportive! Had I won, I would have shared the award with you all (I had a little speech ready just in case!)…
What else? I did a day trip to Manchester to attend the Sweet Mandarin Chinese cookery class, which was great fun and very informative. I reviewed two cookery books in June, Serendip on Sri Lankan cuisine by Peter Kuruvita and A Culinary Voyage on Greek Island cooking by Theodore Kyriakou. Both were ‘traveleating’ books at their best and I particularly enjoyed making the potato and tuna cakes from Serendip. I also attempted to make Sichuan wontons, which were rather spicy and delicious!
Outside the kitchen, I returned to Taste of London, the annual restaurant and food festival, and ate at Japanese Tsuru, a 15 course dinner at Hunan, a superb pizza at Franco Manca, dim sum at Leong’s Legend and revisited Le Café Anglais.
And last but not least, I met Kang from LondonEater for lunch. The meal itself was mediocre, but the company was excellent. As a result of our chat, the next day I bought myself the Leica D-LUX 4, which Kang recommended as ‘the king of compacts‘. He has also been giving me useful food photography tips ever since, and I’m determined to learn to use the Leica properly. Thank you Kang!
Thank you as always for reading!
Helen Yuet Ling Pang @ World Foodie Guide
A great month all round! I am always so impressed that you get the time to write about everything.
Good work on the awards recognition! That camera, though, apart from the Leica badge, looks almost exactly the same as my Panasonic DMC-LX3, which is a bit eerie. Your food photography is superb, however, much better than mine which suggests it’s not just the camera…
Thanks for your comment on my A&C chicken post! Much appreciated!
There are a number of things that, were I offered them, I’d turn down… things like gin or tequila on the drinks front and a whole range of things on the food side!
Ice-cream IS something I’d buy ready-made and potentially even blog about… ah well!
I don’t know whether A&C will appreciate the balance in my review; there are certainly some quite negative issues (though nothing truly damning) but these are balanced, I think, by positives, certainly in regards to the chicken. And certainly the very first comment gives the impression that the poster became aware of their meat products through my post and is considering purchasing!
Still, although including negatives may mean they decide not to send me any further products (which they’d originally planned, from sounds of it), I really had to say it as I saw it.
What an amazing time you’ve been having, Helen. Many congratulations once again on being shortlisted for the award – a fantastic achievement. I don’t think your food photography needs any improvement at all – it always looks great to me.
Another excellent month, rounded off with the nomination, really well done Helen, and I’ll continue to support the excellent work you are carrying out here
Glad the camera is working out great for you… I’m tempted by one myself now, and as Ollie says, you need no improvement at all, it always looks great
Niamh – thank you! I really enjoy these round-up posts. They’re a good way of looking for old posts as well (for me anyway!) as long as I can remember the month I did or ate something in!
Ewan – they are meant to be identical cameras, just that I wanted a Leica! But I barely know how to use it, so am still struggling with the settings. Kang from LondonEater taught me to use the Aperture priority setting, so that’s all I’ve been using until I can learn to use the manual focus and other settings!
Kavey – I think you were very clear in your review and more importantly honest and objective too. I’m going to write a post about freebies soon, but still thinking about it at the moment.
Ollie – thank you! It has been a manic but fun month. And I’m enjoying my new camera very much!
kang – thank you and also for saying you liked this photo (which is the reason I chose it for this post!). Look forward to learning lots more about how to use my Leica from you!
Helen Yuet Ling
Oh, aperture-priority is the one is it? I’ll have to look up how to use that when I remember where I put my manual…
Congratulations again on the award, having followed your blog for about a year, I concur with the award, and only have to ask what took them so long to recognize the writing. I’ve had so much fun following the London’s restaurant through your perspective and only see trouble when I have that all too brief stopover in September to choose one restaurant based on your many excellent reviews.
Here’s to seeing what culinary delights you unearth in future. Thanks for taking the time to share so that we can enjoy the experience.
Look forward to all the photos with the new camera, I’m on the lookout for one having been disappointed with some of my pics, notice I blame the equipment and not the photographer.
OysterCulture – thank you again! Please let me know if you need any help with deciding on the one and very crucial place to eat when you are here in September. London’s huge and you wouldn’t want to miss your connecting flight! If you’re looking for a compact, I recommend the Leica D-LUX 4. It has so much undiscovered potential and I know I’m not worthy of such an amazing piece of equipment!
I will take you up on your offer of a recommendation – how could I turn down advice from an expert? I am traveling with my Mom and while she is fairly adventurous (I’ve taught her well) she falls back on the staples, so any suggestions for a lovely meal where we could stretch our legs close to the Heathrow Express. I realize we can jump on another tube line, but do not want to scare my Mom by being too adventurous. Thanks for your help!