This post is so overdue, blame it on a lot of things. Anyway here it is.

It was Wednesday of last week when I got an email from Rouge Digital inviting me for a food blogging event on November 7 at the Fort for Century Corned Tuna. I was thrilled to have been invited and I immediately said yes and asked Christopher if it’s possible to have my husband join the event as well. There were two options on how to participate in the event – first, is to join the teams that will be participating in the challenge, second to be part of the observers who will later on judge the finished dishes after the taste test is conducted. In my excitement, I forgot to specify how I would like to participate in the event. Apparently, the first question was if I wanted to be part of the teams who will be doing the cooking, and I only said yes right away.

Come November 7, I went home after my shift the night before. Upon arriving home, I just took a bath, watched tv and then waited for the occupational therapist to drop off my son. When I saw that it was already 2pm I hurriedly left to go to the venue.

I had a hard time looking for the venue, the cabbie said Philippine Stocks Exchange, which of course got all the Fort patrol confused. It’s a good thing hubby sent me an sms with the mobile number of one of the guys from Rouge Media. Apparently, it’s a cute and fancy restaurant in High street, called Stock Market.

The venue

When I got there, I immediately saw some of the bloggers who was also invited to cover the event. I felt so self conscious being alone, and not having my Canon S3 IS which gave up on us after being underwater for 2 days during the flood. I only have my husband’s Sony Ericsson W890 which I gave him last Christmas. When I registered at the entrance, I saw that I was indeed part of the playing teams. I was anxious to meet all the other bloggers, after all its been ages since I made new friends. I was anxious and excited and jittery all at the same time.

I was made to sit a corner table near the cooking area. Alex, another blogger, was already there. We exchanged hellos and started to chat and get to know each other. One by one, the bloggers started to fill the place. Most of them know each other. I was rather shy, but they were all nice and I started to warm up later on. Here are the bloggers I got to meet that day: Ate Ajay, Pretty Jane, Karla, AJ, Melo, Alex, Arpee, Omar and Doc Gelo (saw him but met him online when I asked for the pics. hehe)

ate Ajay, Jane and Me

After getting to know each other and eating a red sauce pasta with corned tuna and a canape, we were then given instructions on how to play the game. Apparently, we were given an hour to cook 2 dishes – a pasta dish and an appetizer. It was exciting and absolutely fun trying to brainstorm and execute what we came up with. In the end, we were rewarded by satisfied smiles from the judges and the rest of the people who tasted our dish. To make the day even more delightful, our team won and we were given P10,000 to split amongst ourselves. But that did not end there, after the awards we were treated to a sumptuous buffet and before we left we were given 2 paper bags filled with goodies!

On the way home, I thought to myself: Hey I can actually get used to this.

famous bloggers tasting our dishes

Team B

with Chef Donna

our winning piece

Team A's pasta creation

the award winning quesadilla

while busy cooking

cooking galore

Chef Donna, Jane and Arpee

I certainly hope this is just the first of many blogger events I’ll get to attend to.

***photos from: ate Ajay and Doc Gelo. Thanks po

With all then happy campers that we had who tasted our dish, i’m sure there’s not a lot of things that will end up in the trash and hardly anything for the compost bin.

Team B - the winning team with our coach Chef Donna

judges tasting our creation