• Ai-Ling Truong, Food Endeavours of the Blue Apocalypse (Chair)
• Matt O’Donohue, Abstract Gourmet
• Bri Whitton, Eatmeetswest
• David Brady, Food Blarg
• Chris Lau, Bon Viveur

Ai-Ling Truong, Food Endeavours of the Blue Apocalypse

Although she grew up surrounded by great food and with the influence of her chef father, Ai-Ling didn’t develop an interest in cooking until she moved out of home. At that point she decided that she wanted to learn all her family cooking secrets so that she could feed herself. She started her blog Food Endeavours of the Blue Apocalypse in January 2010 to document her cooking ventures and to share the recipes of the Chinese and Vietnamese food that she grew up eating. She also likes to bake and get creative in the kitchen concocting apocalyptic dishes for the end of the world.

Ai-Ling won the recipe writing competition for Eat Drink Blog 3 by popular vote and was on the judging panel for the banana bread café bake-off at the Beaufort Street Festival in 2011.

Ai-Ling is actively involved in organising exciting events in Perth. She was on the food committee for the Beaufort Street Festival in 2012, which over 100,000 people attended, and was the project coordinator for the Beaufort Street Festival: Recipes and Ramblings cookbook. She is currently the food curator for TEDxPerth.

Matt O’Donohue, Abstract Gourmet 

Matt O’Donohue started Abstract Gourmet back in 2005 when most people didn’t know what blogs were.  It quickly moved from a convenient way to procrastinate at work to a serious obsession where his love of food, coffee, sarcasm and photography came together.

The blog led on to stints writing for magazines including SPICE and Gourmet Traveller, as well as photo shoots for local cafes and artists, and played a big part in his involvement in the W.A Barista Championships which he organised and judged for 3 years.

Probably the sweetest blog perk however, was that Abstract Gourmet eventually led him to meet his beautiful wife Marcela, over slices of jamon and chunks of manchego. With whom he now runs a Colombian empanada business along with Harito their son.

Matt has long been involved with the Slow Food movement in Perth, and is a strong advocate for local chefs, producers, and people who do things well.

Briony Whitton, Eatmeetswest

Bri doesn’t recall a time where her world hasn’t revolved around food. With a chef for a mother, Bri has been living, breathing and unhealthily obsessing about food from the time she could hold a pastry brush.

Eatmeetswest was created in 2011 as a way to share her growing passion for food, local produce and the amazing city she lives in, as well as the things she learned along the way. Mostly as a warning to others. She is klutzy and prone to burning herself on the stove; yet still soldiers on regardless of fears for her own personal safety.

Bri has been featured in The West Australian and Scoop Magazine. She was also published in Recipes and Rambles – The Beaufort Street Festival Cookbook. That was pretty cool. She also manages to eat most days without spilling on herself, and considers that a win.

David Brady, Food Blarg

David has started (and killed off) more blogs than he can remember. His currently uses his blog as a set of digital recipe cards which he started mid-2010 and posts in sporadic bursts to. Passionate about food, drink, music, books, maps and shiny things, David is regularly found to be either over committed to managing a series of projects and events, or curled up in a beanbag with a book and a cup of tea. He cooks because he figures “If I need to do this to eat, I might as well do it well”.

David is one of the producers of GeoRabble in Perth (A free, open forum for geo-geeks to talk about spatial, free from vendors and agendas), plays one or two musical instruments well, a lot poorly, and is always looking for interesting people, situations and challenging things.

Chris Lau, Bon Viveur

Growing up in Malaysia with a stay at home grandmother, Chris has been spoilt, food wise, from a very young age with gran preparing hot lunches and dinners almost everyday. Working tirelessly from the stove, she not only fed and nourished this fussy grandson, but also laid the groundwork to develop the palate and tastes for culinary adventures to come. The full extent this education was only realised once he left home and had to fend for himself. Now older and a perhaps a little wiser, Chris can be found pottering in the kitchen, recreating the comfort foods of his childhood.

When not reminiscing, Chris loves discovering and sharing great food in the company of friends.