Friday, April 1, 2011

The Epic Picnic

Arva's carrot cake sandwiches



Sukaina's strawberry and hazelnut cake


Anja's peppadews, veggie sticks, and hummus


What do you think of when you hear about almost a dozen food bloggers getting together for a picnic?


 If you thought exquisite, creative, and absolutely delicious food, then you're absolutely right.


This weekend, a whole bunch of us at Table Talk gathered at Safa Park for an afternoon of foodies and food. Every dish was more delicious than the last and for around three hours all we did was chat, eat, and take photographs. It was wonderful. 



The dessert section


More of Sukaina's cake

Sarah's Melba toast


Sarah brought spicy chicken wraps and melba toast with pickled beet, goats cheese and curried onion jam. I didn't eat the spicy chicken wraps (I must have missed them amongst all the food!) but the melba toasts were absolutely heavenly. They were perfectly bite-sized and I must have had about 5 or 6 without even realizing.


Arva brought carrot cake cookie and cream cheese sandwiches and halloumi and zaatar southern-style biscuits. The carrot cake sandwiches were SO creative.. and absolutely delicious.. They were two tiny rounds of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting in the middle. 


Sukaina brought strawberry and hazel nut cake with mascarpone frosting which was sooo light, elegant, and flavourful. 


Anja brought rosewater-scented pistachio cake, avocado chocolate truffles, hummus and veggie sticks, and feta-stuffed peppadews. The peppadews were wonderful as they were just the kind of thing I felt like eating after my habanero pepper attempt went disastrously spicy. And the hummus was soo good.. don't think I've ever had homemade ones and these beat all the ones I've had at restaurants.


Kari brought Reggae Salsa... Mexican salsa with a Jamaican Twist and Toasted Pita Chips which was magical!


Sandy brought Goat Cheese Tomato Tart which I must have had a hundred slices of.. gorgeous!


Sally brought ginger chocolate cookies and mini spiced butternut squash frittatas. The cookies were one of the best things I think I have ever eaten. The two flavours went wonderfully together and the frittatas were delicious as well. 


Yasmin brought mini chocolate pudding tarts which looked way too amazing to be homemade but they were! Each tartlet was a little piece of perfection.


Lin brought roasted tomaotes with salt pepper, basil & garlic and banana and lemon muffins. The best 
thing about the tomatoes was that they were homegrown! 



Edwina brought a zucchini and chocolate cake- which fully converted me to the idea of zucchini in cakes. I had seen tons of zucchini cupcake recipes before and always found it very odd. I decided to be adventurous and try Edwina's cake and LOVED IT! I never knew how great zucchini can work in a cake. It was soft and subtle and complemented the chocolate flavour in the cake WONDERFULLY. 

As for me, I brought some Italianesque sandwiches and these corn muffins


Anja's pistachio and rosewater scented cake

Yasmin's chocolate tartlets

All the food.. and my Italianesque sandwiches

Sandy's goat cheese and tomato tarts


11 comments:

  1. Wow the food looks absolutely amazing! Wouldn't have expected anything less from a Foodie Picnic of all of those Famished in Arabia for bit of Table Talk.... (Sorry, I know that was bad but I couldn't resist :P )

    Thanks for posting this up for those of us that couldn't make it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. That really is an epic picnic! The food looks wonderful.
    How lovely that you can get together with other like-minded people for a meet-up.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Looks like you were having lots of fun! Delicious looking food!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous1/4/11 20:37

    I just came home from brunch to celebrate my first article today and read this and felt I should have stayed out and had dinner! Instant hunger. The post and images are very vivid! Plus your con muffins were SUPER with my salsa! Like Super Duper. Like I am gonna have to get the chef to help me really mesh the two!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks for the mention Sid, I'm so flattered that you liked the cookies, especially that coming from an expert baker like yourself! What a fabulous event that was, I'm so glad we finally made it happen :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. It was a lovely, lovely afternoon - to be repeated soon I hope. Thanks for the nice mention.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Awww.... I had a fab time with you all as well. Let's do it again soon!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thank you for the kind mention :) I definitely had a fabulous time coupled with delicious food and lovely people.

    ReplyDelete
  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  10. It really was epic - time for another one!

    ReplyDelete
  11. wow it seems you had a swell time!

    ReplyDelete

Tell me what you think!