A taste of Melbourne.

My favourite day of the year. I love TASTE of Melbourne – it beats christmas, birthdays, easter – because it is a holiday dedicated to food.

But, it isn’t just the food that makes this event so fantastic (yes, I just said that). It is the fact that it is always sunny, everyone I know who is going gives me a call because they know I will be there, so we always end up with a big group, and we hang out in beanbags next to Albert Park Lake. Oh, and we snack on food made by some of Australia’s top chefs, generally paying under $10 for each dish.

And the food producers – the farmers – the winemakers – the chocolatiers – the pastrychefs – the butchers – brewers….. Everyone that has anything to do with Melbourne’s incredible, world-renowned food industry has a stand, a stall, a masterclass, a pop-up restaurant or a custom-designed marquee.

It is always a day filled with excitement, excellent food, laughter, a bit of dancing, and just, well, fun.

We always do a cocktail masterclass with Sensology. For $12 you get to learn how to make a specific cocktail, and then drink it! We did espresso martinis this time (last year, Mojitos!)

Throughout the evening more and more of our friends showed up until we swelled to a massive group of 15. It was too hard to keep everyone together, but fortunately there were enough of us that wherever we turned we ran into someone we knew. So we ran around, ate what we want, watched demonstrations from Silver Creek Smokers, watched Darren Purchese make chocolate ganache, and drank raspberry beer in the beer hall. Last year, I got to meet Darren Purchese and he signed a cookbook for me – this year we saw Frank Camorra grilling kebabs.