DMBLGiT December 2011 - The Winners

My first post in 2012 and what an exciting post. Oh, by the way, here's wishing all my readers a wonderful and fabulous New Year! Now coming back to what I intended to begin with, the winners of the DMBLGiT December 2011 event. I am late by a day in annoucing the winners, but I know you all will understand the party mood of 31st and then the 1st.

Ever since the announcement of the event, entries have poured in, and in plenty. Thanks to the judges who took out time to be on the panel and select the winners. With so many deserving entries, it was indeed difficult deciding the winners. Check out the Picasa Album to see all the entries of this edition.

So, here I unfold the suspense.

Overall Winners

First place:

Jasenka of Sweet Corner with her Flourless Chocolate Cake with Chantilly Cream and Glazed Pears.

Second place:

Sneh Roy of Cook Republic with her Tomato and Mustard Chutney.

Third place:

Steve Ho of Cuisine Airline with his Ebi Fry.

Category Winners

Winner of Edibility Category:

Kathryn Grace of Kathryn Grace Photography with her Vanilla Almond Spice Granola.

WInner of Originality Category:

Amy Tong of u Try. it with her Smoky Butternut Squash Soup.

Winner of Aesthetics Category:

Barbara Kiebel of Creative Culinary with her Cranberry Ginger Fizz Cocktail.

The Host's Choice:

Nashira Usef of Plateful with her Claypot Fish Curry.

Winners - Congratulations! Hopefully winning the contest brought a smile on your faces during the very first week of this new year. All of you have a great year ahead.

DMBLGiT December 2011 - Meet the Judges

Since the DMBLGiT Announcement yesterday, entries have started coming in and I'm having fun looking at those lovely photos. Take a look at the Picasa Album for some food porn.

It's time I introduce the judges of this month's DMBLGiT. I thank all four of them for agreeing to be on the panel and spare their time to help me judge all the wonderful entries.

Sylvie Shirazi is a freelance food photographer and food writer. On her blog, Gourmande in the Kitchen, she shares simple everyday recipes that celebrate the joy that food brings to our lives. She believes that food has a unique story to tell us through its texture, colour and shape, and brings this to life through her camera. Through her blog, Sylvie hopes to inspire others to follow their instincts, trust their taste buds, and find a sense of confidence in the kitchen as well as behind the camera.

Aparna Balasubramanian, lives in Goa, the state known for beaches, churches and Portuguese cuisine. Her blog My Diverse Kitchen, is all about food, food and more food as she belives the kitchen to be predominantly the central part of her home. Aparna's passion for photography evolved from her food blog and she particularly takes keen interest in black and white photography. Her tutorials on basic food photography are a great help in making concepts easier to understand for beginners to DSLRs. I agree with her belief that while expensive cameras give better photographs due to their high-end sensors, it's finally the photographer, who, after all makes the difference.

Nagalakshmi, aka Nags, is the cook, writer, and photographer behind Edible Garden. She loves most things edible, loves traveling to places just for the food, and hardly ever leaves home without her camera. Her specialties are Indian food, baking the (very) easy way, and finding new and unique ways to use her Kitchenaid. Her tips on food photography start from chosing your DSLR to basic editing of your photos. She lives in Singapore with her husband and a small herb garden.

Radhika Penagonda is an ex financial software techie turned food blogger and photographer. Passionate about homemade food prepared mostly from wholesome natural ingredients, on her blog Just Home Made, she writes about pure vegetarian food - everything from her traditional south Indian roots to everyday experiments in her kitchen in Texas. She loves to explore new ingredients and believes strongly in eating with our eyes first.

And me! Yes, I'm serious. As the host of this edition, I get to be one of the five judges. Yay!

Keep sending me the photos. You have time till 20th December 2011. I will be publishing the names of the winners on 1st January, 2012. Good Luck!

DMBLGiT December 2011 Announcement

My last post here was in the month of September and I am ashamed to have vanished unannounced. Reasons are plenty. But they are not interesting enough to share with you all. However, the reason I am back today is indeed very exciting.

This month I am thrilled to have the honour of hosting the DMBLGiT (Does My Blog Look Good In This), the grandest food photography contest on the web, conceived by Andrew of Spittoon Extra. And by now, I am sure this event needs no introduction.

Following are the general DMBLGiT Rules:

- Only one food/drink photograph may be entered per person.
- The photograph must have been taken by you.
- The photograph must be text/watermark free.
- The photograph must have been posted on your blog between November 1st through November 30th, 2011.
- The deadline to submit your entry is December 20th, 2011 at midnight, whenever that is in your part of the world.

About the Scoring part:

A panel of judges will be chosen, who will decide 6 winners based on the following criteria:

Aesthetics: composition, food styling, lighting, focus, etc.
Edibility: does the photo make us want to dive right into the food?
Originality: a photo that instantly catches our attention and makes us stop to look twice, and exclaim "Wow!"

Three overall winners will be selected plus one each from the 3 categories. Apart from this, one photo that stands out, but wasn’t selected as a winning one will also be chosen by me.

To enter DMBLGiT December 2011:

It's very simple. Just mail me one qualifying food/drink photograph with "DMBLGiT Entry" as the subject line to events@mysaffronkitchen.com.

Please remember that your email must include the following information:

- Your name
- Your blog's name and URL
- The title of your photograph
- The URL of the post containing the photograph
- The camera and lens used by you
- Your location
- An attachment of a single qualifying food or drink photo you’d like to send as your entry. It should be without any text/watermark and not more than 500 pixels in width

Please note that by submitting a photo, entrants agree to their photo being redisplayed and altered in size on the host’s page and on the SpittoonExtra DMBLGiT page.

DMBLGiT December 2011 Gallery:

The photographs sent to me will be added to this DMBLGiT Dec 2011 Picasa Album as and when I receive them. Please leave me a comment on this post if I mistakenly miss out anyone's photograph. Keep checking the album as all the creativity unfolds.

The Judges:

I am not mentioning the names of the judges right now, but my intention is not to create any suspense. I simply want to write a separate post to introduce the judges for this edition of DMBLGiT. So, come back to check their names. They'll be up, soon!

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Lastly...

You can check out the beautiful photos clicked by last month's winners at Edible Garden, the host of the November 2011 edition.

If you're interested in hosting a future edition of DMBLGiT, send an email to Andrew with "DMBLGiT Host" as the subject line.

If you have any questions about the contest then leave a comment here or contact me. I look forward to your wonderful photographs. So, don't wait, start sending them to me. You have time till 20th of December, 2011. And on January 1st, 2012 I will be announcing the winners for this month. Excited? Then, Good luck!

Hello...anybody there?

I know most of you must have thought that I've fallen off the face of the earth. Please be assured that I'm very much here. It's just that I have been occupied with too many things. Amidst everything that has been keeping me busy, I went for a long, rather a very long road trip with hubby dearest. To and fro we drove approximately 4000 kms in 10 days! Yes, that's what we both love - long long road trips. I'm sharing a few glimpses from that trip. Like I had once said, road trips will make you fall in love with India, all over again.

And now I'm back, thoroughly charged and rejuvenated. I'll back with recipes, really soon. I promise.

Pakode-Wali Kadhi

I suddenly went on an unannounced break, and it was unintentional. I was awfully engaged with too many things. And since my cook joined back after a leave of 2 months, I guess I've become a tad sluggish and disinclined towards cooking. But I just had to post this comfort food. So, here I am.

At home, sunday meals are always an extravagant fare. But yesterday I made and exception during dinner time. I felt an ache for some comfort food. Mostly at such times I would make my favourite khichuri. But I felt Padoke-Wali Kadhi (Fried Onion Dumplings in Spicy Yogurt Sauce) with chawal would be more satiating this time.