Location, Location, Location!

The question remains...
Where will we hold our first foodie meet-up?
It has been suggested (and agreed upon) that we rotate our venues as much as possible.
That way we can appeal to more entrants and it will not be the same people each time having to travel great distances. With so many of us relying on public transport long-distance travel may be a turn-off.
To make the events family friendly it has also been suggested we sometimes find parks as well as houses (If anyone wouldn't mind hosting please let us know.)

Where possible recipes that can be prepared in advance are preferred. If you do need to cook on location a courtesy message to the hosts would be appreciated so the host can work out an oven-share schedule. (Perhaps we can also work out something with other local people to use their ovens & drive to main location for the event)

Do you have a great idea for where we can hold our first event?

Credit rather than awards.

I think it would be a nice touch as we wont be providing physical rewards for winning categories that we perhaps feature the winning recipes of each category on here with photographs, recipe & links to the winner.
That way if we decide to do an end of year bake-off we also had a good record of all our winners plus if someone really enjoyed the food they are able to come back here to grab a copy of the recipe. Perhaps we should host recipes for all entries but also have a featured section for the winners. (Not everybody has the same tastes.)

Also if everyone can supply the recipe with their entry it will be easier to reference for any special dietary needs.

Open forum

Have another suggestion? Make it here. If we find it to be something that will have plenty of discussion we'll give it it's own post.

Categories

This sounds simple at first but you'd be surprised how many categories are actually out there.
We have agreed that some entries may work over multiple categories.
for example. A vegetarian Lasagne may not win the Vegetarian category but it could take out the title of best main meal.

The original categories proposed were
Mains
Entrees
Desserts
Special Diet (Vegan, Gluten Free, Nut Free etc)

Question:
- Do you think we need to expand on these categories?

- Should special diet be split into further categories so nut-free is not competing against gluten-free?

- Should we have weeks dedicated to certain fields? eg: One meeting for mains we cover chicken, another week beef?

- What different categories can you think of?

Please feel free to comment & discuss.

An idea is born

It started with a simple conversation about food. Recipes were swapped and then came the idea.

: We should form a #btub cooking cabal :D
: Do a #MasterchefTub haha. Anyone may come but must bring at least 1 homemade plate per person.

Within a few hours the ideas were coming left, right and centre.
A regular meeting of creative minds. A place to showcase our talents and learn from each other. We would have judging but more for fun than for prizes. Something which would make people want to keep entering.
In reality this is just another excuse for a social event. To get us all off the PC and into our kitchens and the real world. Yet it is much more than that. There is something about a good home-cooked meal which is shared with others. It is a natural ice-breaker.
It was decided quite early that we would need categories.
to make it fair, it'd have to be somewhat thematic. I mean, how does one compare curry to cupcakes?